Quantum Scrambled Eggs
by Shark8
Summary: This is your brain. [Egg] This is your brain after going through the Quantum Leap Accelerator. [Swiss Cheese] This is your brain after going through the Accelerator without the limiters. [Scrambled eggs & Swiss cheese] Books & TV included as well.
1. Prolog

Quantum Scrambled Eggs  
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Prologue

Admiral Albert Calavicci strode into the 'office' happier than he usually was, a sure sign that things were still working out in his seventh, or was it eighth, marriage and things couldn't be better. Al smiled as he sat down, 'What a wonderful day! I don't think anything could ruin it.' He thought as he pulled out several financial reports, some funding requests, and a cigar and began to go over them.

He was still smiling thirty minutes later, occasionally puffing on his smoldering cigar, when the phone rang. "Admiral Calavicci.", he answered cheerfully.

"Sergeant Brooks, sir." The voice on the other end responded, pausing before continuing "Sir, we've got a situation. There's been a civilian casualty."

"What?" The admiral asked as the cigar dropped from his mouth landing in his lap. "What happened?" The admiral asked as he grabbed at the cigar trying to retrieve it before it could burn a hole in his pants or start a fire.

"Well Sir, there was a lightning strike at the test site and a civilian was hit with some sort of a discharge." The sergeant on the other end said, pausing a bit as if trying to remember something, "Anyway, Sir, our on-site technician will be at your facility within two-hours with the detailed report for the experts."

– – – – – – – – – –

Dr. Campbell sighed, it was that time of the year again. Time to go over all the project personnel medical records and update them, and of course it had to be now that she received the medical records and reports regarding that accident a few weeks ago. She gave a cursory look over his medical history, and a slightly less cursory look at the EKG, EEG, and MRI charts reporting his current condition.

Dr. Campbell shut the folders and set them on the desk. "Well, the coma patient can wait… if I don't get these medical files done it'll be hell on my yearly evaluation." She muttered to herself as she rolled her chair over to that stack of personnel files she'd been dreading all year.

Several hours later Dr. Campbell was stifling a yawn as she was finishing up on yet another of Project Quantum Leap's 'key' personnel. Of course it didn't help that ninety percent of the people on-site _were_ key personnel. Grabbing the last file, and arguably the most important one, she finally allowed herself a look at the clock. "One thirty?" She laughed a bit, "Well, that's what I get for procrastinating…" she lightly chided herself as she opened Dr. Samuel Becket's medical file.

She scanned over the information with a care, precision, and alertness that she'd not shown to any other the whole day. Not to say that shw didn't do her job competently, but Dr. Becket was the project's founder and creator… and with his special condition… well, everyone wanted good results on all fronts.

Some of the data in the charts seemed familiar for some reason. Like she'd looked at them recently and then discarded the information as it hadn't seemed relevant at the time. She scratched her head and chewed thoughtfully on her favorite pen as she thought about it.

Dr. Campbell blinked as she realized where she'd seen those patterns, or rather ones quite similar, just recently. "Oh… my… God…"

– – – – – – – – – –

Admiral Al Calavicci was confused, not that it was a hard state to be in when one was talking about things that were technical in nature to a genius scientist who'd invented his own time machine, so that he was confused was inevitable.

"Look Al," Sam Becket sighed again, "He shouldn't be leaping, he just can't. I built anchors into…" Sam stopped in mid-sentence as the realization hit him. It wasn't that the safeties were present, it was that they weren't.

"Al, you were testing the Accelerator in pieces to find out if any of the parts were defective, right?" Sam asked suddenly, changing demeanor so quickly his friend stood in shocked silence for a moment before replying.

"Yeah, we were having each of the components checked against the parameters in the project specifications. We sent the Displacement Unit to Los Alamos, the Gradient Control to Sandia, and the Flux Capacitor to White Sands." Al grinned with that last component, whoever had designed that part had watched Back to the Future one too many times.

Sam groaned, "Al, if it was just the Flux Capacitor that was activated then, that boy doesn't have any of the anchor that I do."

"Anchors?" Al asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Yes Al, it's what you and Ziggy to keep in contact with me, and it's also how Ziggy's memory banks aren't effected by the changes I make here in the past." Sam tried his best to explain it simply for his friend although it was quite a bit more complex than that.

"So he's going around in time and we can't tell what he's doing?" All asked trying to understand.

"No!" Sam said suddenly, almost snapping, "Well, yes, but something more important."

"What?" Al asked.

"Without those anchors he's not going just throughout our past, but everyone's..." Sam sighed and tried to think of how to explain alternate realities.


	2. Chapter 001 :Begin Arc 01:

Quantum Scrambled Eggs  
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Chapter 1

The wind whistled through the trees, rustling green leaves and causing the warm summer sunlight to dance on the ground below playing softly on the figure sleeping there. Birds sang happily unaware of the human intrusion into their territories. It was for this reason that all the birds suddenly cut their chattering to see the sudden disturbance they felt rather than saw.

If one could actually see things through a natural alpha-state they would see blue lightning suddenly cascading around the figure of the sleeping human arcing in odd flowing paths until it faded back into nothingness.

Some of the birds looked down in curiosity while others thought it best to flee the area. Still others decided that it was nothing worth worrying about and continued their musical calls and responses, blending it with the tuneless music of the nearby brook and the harmony of the breeze as it played with the leaves.

The figure groaned for a moment and put a hand to his head, trying in vain to keep the world from spinning and looked around when it finally did. He was in a small forest clearing; evidently he'd made camp there, because off to the side was a small fire-pit stacked with wood ready to be lit for cooking. The blanket he was currently sitting on seemed to be sturdy, yet it was obvious that it was well used. Sitting right next to the blanket was a small traveler's pack…

It all fit together, but something was missing.

"Who am I?!" the figure yelled to the skies. It seemed to echo three times thought the trees shouldn't have let it echo.

Apparently he had no clue as to who he was… well, he could figure it out. Reaching out a hand, he grabbed the travel pack and emptied the contents onto the blanket. Perhaps there would be a clue among the items.

The food, most of it canned, probably some sort of military rations, he set to the side. That eliminated two-thirds to three-fourths of the items. There were several maps, which a quick glance over revealed that besides not knowing who he was he didn't know _where_ he was either. Sighing he set them aside as well. Then his eyes fell on a small flattened piece of metal, he wondered what it could be used for before placing it back in the travel-bag.

The last item he examined was a book, a medium-sized and rather nondescript leather bound book, almost like one that might be used for a diary. Opening the book he started reading. He gasped when he came across a name, a whole list of names actually… this was definitely a clue… and it certainly indicated that his family name was _Gabriev_.

"Well, I thought I heard you yell," a voice behind him said, startling him so much that he jumped, almost dropping the book. "I got the doc, but he'll be a while."

"Who are you?" he asked the newcomer wearily, eyes darting to the bow casually slung over one shoulder and the long needle-point dagger strapped to his right hip.

Laughing, he replied, "Take it easy G-Man, it's just me… Yeal." Then he saw the look of complete lack of recognition on the other's face and sighed. "I guess that hit to your head earlier was as bad as I thought, maybe worse… I've heard of things like this. Losing memories, I mean."

"Ok… Yeal." The one referred to as G-Man scrutinized him rather intensely. "I guess you know me, even if I don't know you."

Gourry thought to himself as he half-listened to Yeal 'So, who _is_ this guy? I don't think he means me any real harm, he could have jumped me while I was reading… So, I guess he's ok. Though I wish he'd stop calling me "G-Man". It's annoying.'

Yeal nodded and chuckled a bit. "I'm glad you're being reasonable, Gourry. I mean we've been together for almost three years now and it'd be a shame to let a little thing like a hit to the head ruin our friendship."

"You hit me in the head!?" Gourry screamed almost hysterically.

Yeal laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes, "Oh, Gourry… You sure haven't forgotten how to tell a joke." Yeal barely got out before bursting into laughter as he gasped out

"I-I warned you - about - about - that goblin…" Yeal said as he collapsed and tried to bring himself under control. Yeal looked rather embarrassed and apologetic as he sat down away from his companion.

"_I_ don't see what's so funny." Gourry mumbled to himself, and scratched his head.

"You ducked _into_ the blow instead of away from it." Yeal said almost bursting into uncontrollable laughter again.

Gourry sighed. It wasn't funny from where he stood, but then he started to imagine the scene… there he was fighting and a goblin jumps at him from behind and to the left wielding a club, Yeal yelling out a warning… only to have Gourry duck into the blow.

Gourry chuckled, it _was_ kind of funny.

– – – – – – – – – –

The gnarled hand clutching the large irregularly shaped rock arced down smashing forcefully into Gourry's skull.

"Gah!" Gourry jumped up, obviously surprised by the doctor braining him.."What was that for!?" Gourry yelled at the small grey-haired man he towered over.

"Well…" The doctor began as he stroked his long grey beard, "I once heard that the secret treatment of someone who lost their memory due to a blow to the head was to repeat that blow."

"Yeah? Look at this! Look!" Gourry held his hand up, covered with blood from the profusely bleeding head wound. "I don't think you know what you're doing, you old quack!" Gourry angerly spat, as he replaced his hand trying to stop the bleeding.

"Well, I, you… Argh!" The doctor huffed, wheeling about and heading to his horse. "Fine!"

"Whoh! Doc, calm down, calm down." Yeal said trying to placate the irate physician. It's a general rule that calling a doctor a quack, under any circumstances, will offend them. "He didn't mean it. He's just angry…" Yeal tried to cover for Gourry, but as he said it he realized that it wouldn't be enough, "about losing his memory, that is!" Yeal finished, thinking it a good way to redirect the doctor's attention. "I mean, a memory's a pretty important thing to a man."

"Ehh." The doctor paused as he grunted non-commensally.

"What man wouldn't be angry if his memories were taken from him?" Yeal asked, trying to play on the doctor's pause. "All his experience, his work, family and friends. Gone. Just like that."

The doctor spun around shaking visibly with anger.

"And what about winning your first fight? Drinking your first beer? Girls?" Yeal said cutting off the doctor's angry retort. "All the things that make a man."

"Well, I suppose." the doctor said, albeit through clenched teeth. "I suppose I _can_ go and look though my library at home…"

Yeal relaxed, calming people wasn't his specialty, and he felt better now that he'd managed to keep the doctor from storming off with his down payment and not curing his friend.

Things were cut short by the distinct feminine scream of absolute terror. Now this was what Yeal had signed on for… saving beautiful damsels in distress. Well, the money too, but that was beside the point.

My daughter!" The doctor gasped as he spun back to his horse and mounted with all the haste he could manage, just before clutching his chest gasping "Arg, My heart!" and falling off the other side.

"Come on Gourry!" Yeal shouted as he ran off towards where the scream had emanated..Yes, the doctor _was_ having a heart attack, but times like these called for decisive action and priorities. And beautiful women _always_ ranked higher on Yeal's priority list than old men. "Doc, you'll have to treat yourself, Gourry and I'll save your daughter."

– – – – – – – – – –

Gourry and Yeal trotted close behind the poor kidnaped damsel, or at least they did according to Yeal. Gourry was less sure, not to mention there was a nagging feeling that something wasn't right, though he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out _why_ things didn't feel right.

Then with a rumble rising from deep within his bowls Gourry knew what it was. He needed to take a crap. Badly.

A few minuted later Gourry emerged from the wood-line feeling much better. "Ah, that feels better!" Gourry said cheerfully.

"I didn't need to know that." Yeal replied somewhat dryly, then added under his breath "Or smell it."

"What?" Gourry asked, failing to notice how several of the trees behind him were going through the autumn motions of having their leaves change color and fall off.

"Nothing, let's just go!"

Gourry shrugged and followed Yeal. As it turned out he wasn't wrong, they weren't far behind the kidnapers at all. In fact they were amazingly close, closer than they knew, as they burst into a clearing where the kidnapers had made camp.

Yeal fell into the camp area after stumbling over a protruding root that he did being too intent on the kidnapers. Sprawled out on the ground and gasping for breath Yeal got a good look at the kidnappers as the four men closed in on him. Two were big and hairy, with thick-bladed swords strapped to their sides they didn't seem quite like ape-bears. The other two looked to be brothers, well dressed, and probably robbers of another sort, politicians or lawyers.

"Well well, what have we got here?" One of the ape like men said with a chuckle.

"I think it's someone who wasn't invited." The other answered drawing his sword and holding it high above his head heady to bring down with maximum force. "I just knows we doesn't like uninvited people barging in all uncivilized like."

Hiding in the dense bush just outside the clearing Gourry looked on… 'Okay, here we go! We can do this!' He told himself, though it wasn't exactly full of confidence. He took a breath, eased his sword out of its sheath, and started counting mentally, 'One, two…'

"Three!" Gourry shouted as he jumped out of the bush and caught the big man's sword just before it would have struck, deflecting it at the last instant… following the path of the original arc with his eyes as he used the forward momentum of his rather massive body to body-check the ape-man. He observed that the strike would have landed a good eight inches away from Yeal's ear had it gone uninterrupted.

Gourry continued his surprise assault with a underhanded swing of his sword to the first man and a kick to the wrist of the second as he reached for his sword. He wasn't in a good spot, in fact directly in between two enemies in close-quarters combat is a really bad place to be. So Gourry tried to side step and get the two in his field of vision without leaving Yeal undefended.

"Quite enough of that!" one of the politicians said in a commanding tone.

"Is that any way to treat guests?" the other asked as he adjusted his tie and a flower pinned to his jacket. "I mean I did hire you to protect me from the bandits that prowl these forest roads, but these folk don't seem like that sort to me… besides," He smiled and straightened the coat, "We do need witnesses for my wedding!"

"Wedding?" Yeal gasped, finally able to catch a little of the wind that had been knocked out of him.

"Why yes! Today is the day I marry that fine doctors daughter."

"I'm confused." was all that Gourry could manage, things were just a little too strange. And they were getting stranger by the moment.

The doctor flew into the clearing mounted on his old grey horse, dismounted and gave the finely dressed man a warm embrace. "I'm not too late am I?"

"No! No, not at all. How could we have the wedding without the father to give the bride away?" he replied laughing and smiling, "Now why don't you go get her?" he excitedly urged the older man on.

– – – – – – – – – –

The wedding was short and sweet. The other well-dressed man turned out to actually be the other man's younger brother, and also the Reverend that they wanted to marry them. Yeal caught the garter and one of the ape-like men the bouquet.

There was cake and ice cream for everyone after the ceremony, though Gourry didn't see where it could have come from, it just seemed to appear out of thin air.

As things wound down, Goury found himself thinking about what had happened. The recent events still puzzled him. "What happened? I thought we were chasing kidnappers Yeal?"

Yeal looked up from his cake, wiped his mouth with a napkin, missing a large crumb on the side of his mouth. "Yeah… I thought so too."

The daughter laughed from across the table, "I was just surprised when Danny literally swept me of my feet riding that large black horse of his."

"But what about the Doc's heart-attack?" Gourry asked, still not convinced everything was okay.

It was the doctor's turn to laugh, "That was just my heartburn acting up my boy!" He started to take another bite, then added on, "This here heart's as strong as any of you young whipper-snappers'."

"Now, if you two are through " the Reverend held up a crystal glass and proposed a long and heartwarming toast to the bride and groom.

– – – – – – – – – –

Yeal and Gourry made their way out of the forest along a road that wound in between the gentle slopes of the plains. The doctor hadn't been able to find anything to help Gourry and they had decided that they would take a troll extermination job. Gourry couldn't see it so much as feel that something was going to happen soon, so he tried to keep a sharp eye out despite Yeal's protests that they would be safe until they entered the troll's territory.

**Author's Notes**:

Well, here we go, off to a slow start but a start nonetheless. I chose Gourry for the starting point here for several reasons, one of which was to explain why he seems so clueless in the series (Don't worry, we'll get there.) and several other things I noticed about him, as well as wanting to write some of the series from his point of view, thought that'll only be a bit of it and not the whole series. (You guys don't want to read a rewrite of the whole series from his point of view, you want new and exciting stories right?)

So speaking of new (and exciting) stories, I suppose I should say that this story's start is going to follow Gourry around prior to the opening of the Slayers series a bit, and into the series probably up to the Shabrandigo encounter. Then we jump, it _is_ a story somewhat loosely inspired by Quantum Leap after all.

Special thanks to William B. who helped me iron out the basic story and premise, pointed out several flaws, and gave lots of helpful suggestions. In fact, after discussing it with him I decided to forgo the short one-page intro, as it seemed to be a bit too absurd… and that I'd have to maintain that level of strangeness throughout the entire series. No, instead I decided that I should start out on a bit of a more serious note, starting everyone at the same place as "myself", having no clue what's going on with him, what's happening around him, or why any of it's happening at all. These will be revealed (at least to some degree) during the course of the story.

(Although I have to say that calling Slayers more serious than the intro I had written makes me stop and think '_was it really that bad_' Maybe. When I regain my memory in the story and the truth of the origins are revealed you'll probably agree with him… if I don't clean it up a bit.)

Lastly, but not least, I want to make this story somewhat semi-interactive, meaning that Reviewers/fans will have some small amount of input. (e.g. beg me to go somewhere or not do something.) I have to say that Will gave me the great idea of going to the Sliders universe, which I will be doing on the third 'jump', probably.

If enough people bug me about it I'll post the original 'lost intro' in all it's corny glory, at the end of the story after it's all posted or perhaps put it into a dream or something.


	3. Chapter 002

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

* * *

Chapter 2

Gourry grunted as his sword blocked Yeal's powerful onslaught, then he counterattacked just as hard and just as fast. They'd been at this for what seemed like hours, and both men were panting heavily as they swung their sheathed swords at each other with enough force to raise big red welts when one scored a hit.

Yeal raised a hand and indicated that the day's sparring session was over. "G-man, you're getting better, much better!" Yeal paused to gulp down some air, then continued, "You're not as good as you were before you lost your memories… but at the rate you're learning you'll be better than you ever were in a couple of months."

Gourry nodded, rubbing at the mass of welts on his arms and sides. He'd made three hits today, especially amazing considering he'd only scored one the previous day. He could tell he was getting better, but he didn't think he was anywhere up to par with where he should be, something about the way Yeal acted seemed to indicate that Gourry had once been the better swordsman.

Gourry and Yeal stopped in a small village to get a bite to eat from one of the local establishments and stay the night. "There's no hurry, Gourry!" Yeal had said with the confident air of someone who just _knew_ what the rest of the week was going to be like. "You see Gourry, there's no reson to rush into things… the job'll still be there when we get there." Yeal shrugged his shoulders, "Or maybe it won't, and then we'll just have to find another one. That's the adventure people call life."

Gourry had scratched his head at that. On the one hand it seemed like Yeal was saying to take chances, but on the other he was acting like you shouldn't get stressed out over things that you can't control.

"Whoa!" Gourry said as his mind was pulled back to the present when he bumped into a small boy, knocking the poor lad over onto the hard, cold cobblestones. "I'm sorry."Gourry apologized as he bent down to help the boy up.

Yeal put his hand on Gourry's arm and held the other out flat. "C'mon kid, don't you know it's bad luck to rob the blind or stupid?"

Gourry bristled at the insult, but the hand on his arm gave an apologetic pat, as the kid reached up and returned Gourry's coin pouch to his partner's hand.

"Gourry," Yeal said, sighing, "I'm going to tell you what you told me once: 'Be generous and give to those in need, but never let go of your purse while you do it.', okay?"

– – – – – – – – – –

It was hardly surprising that the next morning Gourry and Yeal gravitated to a rather large crowd that was gathering around an empty lot with a slightly raised stone ring in the center, which was obviously a boundary for something like a ritual or a tournament, which is what earned Gourry several odd looks when he asked what was going on. That was immediately answered when several men began announcing that the town's swordsmanship contest registration would be closing shortly or about the prizes or about how many legendary swordsmen had started off with local contests.

"What do you think Gourry?" Yeal asked, as he fingered several gold coins through the fabric of one of his coin pouches.

"I don't know…" Gourry said, scratching his chin and observing the contestants stretching out or swinging the wooden swords with iron cores around to get their feel.

Yeal laughed, "Oh come on Gourry! It's a perfect chance for you to get some more practice under your belt, I mean, you don't want to get used to fighting one certain opponent." Yeal continued as he made an almost contemptuous gesture at the participants, "Besides that, I'm sure one of us'll win against these small-timers."

Gourry nodded and pulled out his coin pouch as he started to make his way over to the registration desk. Which, he was certain, was a good thing; Yeal looked like he would 'make' him enter the contest and have fun, too.

After entering Gourry and Yeal sat down on the rough wooden bench just outside of the ring for the contestants. Gourry, as luck would have it, found himself sitting next to a younger man wearing an outlandish getup that looked more or less like he was returning from a hunting trip with the carcases of his slain prey draped on his body.

With a disgustingly white and sparkly smile he offered his hand in greeting. "I'm Lord Kain the Unbeatable, son of the Governor." He said with a haughty air, then added, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"I'm Gourry," Gourry started before being cut off by Kain.

"No, don't tell me your name," Kain proclaimed, "It will only make me unhappy knowing the name of the one I will so utterly defeat with my own prowess, determination, and charisma."

Gourry nearly gagged on the hubris and sheer arrogance the man seemed to radiate like the sun did light. 'I really hope I get matched up with this guy…' Gourry thought, hoping to take Kain down a notch or two, though he only said, "We'll see how well you do in the ring."

"Ah, you're the first to speak to me so in such a long time!" Kain said in surprise, then broke into a smile, "I do love a good challenge."

Gourry grunted in acknowledgment and let the conversation drop off and die like a small abandoned animal. Not that he did it on purpose, but that he had nothing more to say to the man. Trying to converse with him would give one a headache at best, and at worst it was how he won all his fights.

Just then the announcers declared the tournament to be underway and, after a lot of show and fanfare, revealed that Yeal and Kain would be the first match. Yeal smiled, and raised an eyebrow when Gourry indicated Kain with a nod. Yeal's face blossomed into a smile as he looked at the obvious challenge in Kain's eyes, apparently he thought it would be a rather fun challenge.

Gourry watched the two combatants stretched for a few moments before making their way lazily to the center of the ring, it seemed to be more of a performance for the spectators, letting them know how was going to be fighting than any real warm-up or stretch, they made their way to the center of the field and, after bowing to each other, took up combat stances.

Gourry looked intently at Kain's stance, it was unlike any stance he'd seen before but seemed somehow familiar with the hilt of the blade held above with the blade guarding the body below.

With a sudden insight Gourry realized what his book on swordsmanship had been talking about when he was reading it last night. It was laying out the effective uses of the stance, its strong pints, its weak points, countermeasures, and lots of other things that he wasn't quite sure of, nevertheless he was trying to commit the whole book to memory. It seemed vital that he learn, or rather re-learn as Yeal said, the art of swordsmanship, and as he watched the next few matches he was constantly gaining new insights into swordplay.

Gourry's head was so abuzz with thoughts and realizations that he almost didn't hear that it was his turn up. Gourry took a deep breath and tried to calm his mind down, but it seemed that his mind was insistent on working out how several of the higher mid-level techniques he'd just witnessed could be incorporated into the Gabriev style effectively.

He walked out to the center of the ring and before he knew it the match was well underway, and his reaction time was almost too slow to block the thrust his opponent had just made. Gourry quickly countered with a diagonal slash of his own that his opponent, a fairly large bald man dressed in brown leathers, readily blocked.

After several exchanges it became apparent that Gourry was at a speed disadvantage, though not overly so. Gourry realized that they were evenly matched in strength, and thus it would become a contest of stamina if he could defend himself against the other's speed well enough.

Gourry was still on the defensive, though interspersed with strong attacks to keep the other combatant from pressing his attacks, and his opponent was starting to be sluggish in his movements compared to when they had begun the round while Gourry's had remained nearly the same speed.

Gourry pressed his offensive, knocking the other back with a series of fierce blows that were frantically trying to be blocked, and moved in for what he thought would be the finishing move. It nearly was, though not in the way Gourry expected it. The other man countered with an equally strong counter-swing that nearly sent Gourry's sword flying from his hand and followed up with a powerful kick that knocked Gourry sprawling.

Gourry rolled out of the way, just quick enough to avoid a downward swing that would have been immensely painful blow had it landed. He pulled himself up and jumped back to avoid a back swing and then countered with a series of thrusts, swings, and feints that confused his opponent enough for get a solid bout-terminating blow… but just barely.

Gourry walked back to his bench and sat next to Yeal who nodded at him and said, "Good job, but I see several things you need to work on…" Yeal caught the slight disappointment in Gourry's eyes and quickly amended, "But you did well, very well indeed."

Gourry smiled and replied with a simple, but heartfelt, "Thanks."

* * *

**Author's Notes**: 

Well, here it is! … Well, while it is kinda short I thought it a good place to end, Ch. 3 will pick up the pace after the tourny, and get things moving… I mean how many of you are waiting to see Gourry meet up with Lina?

……… Right, I forgot virtually no-one reads this.

Well, I'll fix the lack of story and post some more… and then maybe _they_ well come.


	4. Chapter 003

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 3**

The tournament had been a fun, learning experience for Gourry, who had won fourth place. Which wasn't bad at all considering. But out the entrance fees, Yeal and Gourry had to really watch their spending. No gambling or inns for a while, because it was always a good idea to have a little spare cash on hand for the unexpected.

So, Gourry and Yeal continued their trek toward the troll infestation walking along during the day and sparring an hour after they got up and an hour before going to sleep each day, and it seemed like only a little while before they arrived in Fenris, a small town only three days at their leisurely pace to the troll infestation.

It was against Gourry's protest that Yeal pushed for entering the town and staying at the local inn, mostly because they had little cash to spare, but partially because Gourry had grown accustom to the constant bivouac, but in the end Yeal got his way.

As the two warriors entered the inn's dining room they heard something of a commotion. There were five or six big guys, all dressed similarly and displaying a tiger tattoo on their left arm, confronting and using bullying tactics on a thin, small, nerdy looking young man of about eighteen or twenty who was wearing thick glasses and clutching a weathered tome to his chest as he stammered.

"And what are you going to do, huh boy?" Ont of the men asked in a biting tone.

"N-n-nothing." The boy gulped loudly and visibly, "I- I- I don't want any trouble." He stammered in reply, trying to edge away from the one that was yelling at him, only to get closer to the one that attacked next.

"Then you shouldn't have sat in the boss's chair!" He said intelligently, ok, so maybe not so much, but it had its intended effect.

"I d-didn't know…" The boy stammered after jumping and whirling to face the one that had addressed him.

"You should have." The biggest guy that appeared to be the leader cut into the rest of the group's taunts, "It's not like our gang's moved in just this week… oh, wait, it _is_." The big guy finished with a vicious grin as he made a pounding motion with his fist into his open palm.

That was when Yeal stepped up and decked the guy, much to Gourry's surprise, as it happened rather abruptly, but he rushed to help Yeal out. Even though he would likely be able to take care of them all without his assistance. But what are friends for, eh?

Yeal had quickly struck the lead man in the back of the knee, the mid-back, and his right wrist before he could recover from the punch and moved on to the next one using similar tactics. Gourry rushed in to engage numbers three and four, who pulled long knives from their cloaks and started slashing back.

Gourry drew his sword and used the greater force to knock the blade out of one of the other's hands before using the return-strike to both cut the belt from the same guy's pants and drive the butt of the hilt into the hand of the other one, breaking at least one finger in the process.

Yeal, on the other hand was finishing his third ant the same time, so when the last gang-member stood in between the two warriors he threw his knife down and raised his hands in a peaceable, don't-hurt-me gesture.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"… and please, don't come back. " The innkeeper finished saying as he ushered the three out of the inn, which was entirely understandable, one doesn't relish having other prople fighting and/or pissing off the one of the local gangs in one's establishment.

"Well, that could have gone better…" Yeal said, trailing off at the end to gesture to the boy that had been on the receiving end of the gang, "Hey, Gourry, this is my little brother."

"Really?" Gourry asked, then looked closer at the young man, "He sure doesn't look like you."

"Well, Yeal is my step-brother." The boy replied. "Oh, I'm Ethan."

"Yeah, nice to meet you Etan." Gourry said smiling and offering his hand.

"It's Ethan." Ethan repeated his name, clearer this time.

"Oh… sorry." Gourry responded.

"No problem!" Yeal broke in, "Come on you two, let's get going so we can set up camp before dark."

"But you're welcome to stay at home." Ethan protested, showing more backbone to his brother than he had to the total strangers a little while ago.

Yeal made a noise like a grunt, or perhaps a soft growl, and continued walking, leaving Ethan and Gourry to stay or follow as they pleased. There was no way he'd allow himself to go home, not after what he'd said to his father.

• • • • • • • • • • •

The next morning, after Gourry and Yeal had broken camp, they started off at a quicker pace followed by Ethan.

"You know, there's going to be trolls there." Yeal pointed out, trying to dissuade him from coming.

"I'll be fine, you'll see… and I can help with my magic." Ethan replied cheerfully.

"You certainly didn't look like you could handle yourself against those goons back in town Ethan."

"Well... that was different!" Ethan protested.

"How was that any different?" Yeal spun on his brother and jabbed his forefinger into his chest. "If you can't take care of a couple of wannabe gang-members how are you going to be able to stand your ground against a pack of trolls? Huh?"

"It was different because they were _people_, even if I didn't like them, that still wouldn't ease my conscience if I killed them… and I didn't want to destroy the inn."

Yeal blinked at that, then burst into laughter, doubling over in pain and wiping tears from his eye, never noticing Ethan's scowl. "You think so huh? Prove it." Yeal challenged when he could finally speak again.

"Fine." Ethan said, then began chanting something, he finished by saying "Blast Ash!" and a black void appeared in a grove of trees. The trees suddenly turned grey and crumbled to the ground, apparently turned into ash.

"Wow." Yeal said, blinking in disbelief… "I guess you did learn a lot while I was gone."

"And that's not all I can do," Ethan said with more than a bit of smugness, "I learned the Dragon Slave, too."

"Really?" Yeal said, "Then I guess you're well on your way to becoming a first-class mage."

Ethan smiled at that, it had always been a dream to become a good mage, maybe not a great one like the legendary Rei Magnus, but a _good_ one. Hearing his brother encourage him was something he was always glad for, it seemed like he knew his stuff, but lacked the social self-confidence to operate effectively around strangers.

Yeal looked around a bit and then nodded, "Okay then, let's go everyone… we'll be in and out, and get that reward quickly."

• • • • • • • • • • •

Yeal, Gourry, and Ethan emerged in the hilly region the trolls were inhabiting two days later, having picked up the pace, and after a quick recon they had come up with plans for attack. Nothing overly complicated, one, because trolls aren't overly smart, and two, because no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Battles are fluid, almost organic things, that will destroy you if you try to fit it into the small, restrictive form of a plan.

"Okay, everybody, remember to watch out for that regeneration." Yeal reminded, "Only cutting their heads off, or incinerating them, or otherwise causing massive damage will actually kill them."

"Sure, I can open with a Dragon Slave." Ethan said with a grin, "I really want to test it out."

"You and your new toys…" Yeal joked, "Well, it would make a good opener if it's as powerful as I've heard."

"Don't worry, it is." Ethan reassured Yeal, then stood up and went over to the ridge and began chanting the spell.

Gourry and Yeal quickly scrambled down the steep hill into the edge of the semi-valley/plain in the hills that the trolls were gathered in. In a flash there was suddenly a crater in the center of the plain, that was their cue, and so drawing swords, Gourry and Yeal charged into the throng of now thoroughly pissed trolls.

Yeal broke to the right while Gourry met them head on. The first several trolls that they came across instantly lost their heads and, for some reason, Gourry was tempted to yell "_There can be only one!_", the next wave was the beginning of the end.

Yeal fought three trolls, slicing through any limbs that he could and taking that opening to slice through their necks, several trolls that were trying to flank him met a sudden fireball, not killing them but stopping them long enough for Yeal to see them.

Meanwhile, Gourry had finished off four more trolls, mostly lucky swings, he thought… either that or hall the training he'd been doing was very practical. He turned to Yeal to check how the other swordsman was faring, just in time to see one of the semi-charred trolls grab his sword and pull it into its own stomach, and the other three trolls swarmed him, beating him viciously in the bare seconds it took Gourry to run over and assist Yeal.

Gourry cut through the group, separating heads from bodies, cutting through torsos, he finally made it to Yeal. Too late to prevent some nasty cuts and bruises, probably broken bones, but hopefully enough to prevent any permanent damage to his friend.

Ethan had also seen the entire thing. And he had started running down to help, he had a couple of pinpoint precision spells, but they were close-range. As he ran his boot caught a small rock and sent him tumbling, literally head over heels, the landing knocking his glasses away.

Gourry was fending off what seemed to be about thirteen trolls, of course things were somewhat exaggerated at the moment, but he still kept his sword swing fighting back the trolls, cutting here, slashing there, not standing with his back to any one direction for any amount of time, and not allowing his sword to slow so they could use the same tactic they used to take Yeal down.

Ethan, having stumbled about groping for his glasses, had finally gotten up and was as well on his way to helping his brother and Gourry. It was a pity, he thought, in the back of his mind as he ran, that he didn't know any healing magic.

Gourry had thinned the trolls down some, but he was surrounded and it was now only a matter of time before they overcame him, all they really needed, he realized, to bring him down was to make a single orchestrated dive, to simply and suddenly push forward. But just as Gourry knew he was doomed four trolls died in a sudden flash and the smell of burned meat reached his nose making him want to gag. Instead of gagging Gourry attacked the edge of the hole Ethan had opened up, hoping to use the surprise to weaken them even further.

The trolls broke out into a frenzy, there were only eight now, but still they growled and charged like some frenzied football team, in fact some of the smells would remind many teenagers of the locker room, some would remind their father about the hamburgers that he forgot on the grill, and some would remind them about their Uncle Ernie's halitosis, that offensive breath that could incapacitate a rhino, all these smells ane more were included in the physical assault of these remaining eight trolls. Trolls that rushed over the body of poor Yeal, stamping in and being trampled in a manner reminiscent of those idiots that go to Spain to try to commit suicide or whatever it is they do with those bulls. Ah, but I digress, so back to the fight.

Ethan paled and stammered as he saw the trolls charging. He quickly spewed the words to the first spell that came to mind: Blast Ash, which reduced the trolls to nothing more than heaps of ash that disintegrated and blew away on the wind… unfortunately Yeal had also been in the spell's zone and was reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash wearing Yeal's equipment.

"Wha-wha…" Ethan said as his eyes found his brother's armor, " n-n-no! NO! **_NOOOOO!_**"

Ethan took a step back, and let out a sob, then a wail as he turned and fled the scene.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gourry finally caught up to Ethan the next day, and the encounter wasn't pretty. The poor boy was blaming himself for his brother's death, something which in all honesty was questionable considering that they two days, at the quickest, from anyone who could really help. But Ethan refused to be comforted and shut up like a clam and refused to even speak.

Having nothing else to do Gourry collected the reward for the troll job and began wandering from town to town, and for a while he was really depressed, but he was always, if not cheered than distracted from it, somewhat by fighting and studying his book. Needless to say that the total immersion in the art of the sword left him stunned when he came to his senses and decided to try, as best he could, to be cheerful.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: 

Well, here's yet another chapter. I hope everyone liked it. Don't worry, it picks up from here on out, because Gourry's gonna meet someone in the next chapter: Lina Inverse.


	5. Chapter 004

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 4 **

Gourry stepped into the tavern, one of several in Atlas City, but this one was by far the seediest he'd ever seen, but it was rumored to have the best food, too. Gourry shrugged in indifference, if he didn't like it he'd take his money from the caravan guard job he'd just completed and eat somewhere else.

Gourry sat down and a waitress came along and took his order. Her eyes boggling at the triple portions of the two main dishes and one of all four of their salads that he ordered, evidently she thought it was a bit much for someone to eat, even for someone of Gourry's stature.

While he was waiting Gourry heard some of the other caravan guards talking, they'd come here immediately after arriving Gourry guessed. He had gone off into the small woods outside the city and tested something out. It was the book, part of it hadn't made much sense, detailing something about detaching the blade and calling the light… so Gourry had finally gotten around to testing it, and that light-blade, his hilt, named the Sword of Light, according to the book, had cut through even the largest of trees with ease. The book also had a section on the non-standard tactics that the previous bearers had used to kill various monsters and demons.

Gourry had continued eating and listening to the conversation between the other guards, it wasn't eavesdropping, not when they were talking _that_ loudly. Something about a previous job, an encounter with bandits harassing a group of beautiful women who would be eternally grateful to the men that saved them, all in all it sounded like a fairy-tale, but it was rather entertaining nonetheless.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Ten days later, Gourry found himself in the middle of a forest. He didn't have a mercenary job because he was just wandering, taking a break from all the work for a little while, after all he had the funds to do so for a bit, and he wanted to explore the world around him.

He was walking along, minding his own business when he crested a rise just in time to see what was obviously a bandit bulling an innocent victim, in fact he could just hear the lead guy say, "Prepare to die, we'll shred you into mincemeat!"

Gourry did what any decent guy would do, he intervened, shouting "You'll do no such thing!" It had the desired effect, drawing the group's attention to him. Next, he figured to offer them a chance, "If you want to live you'll run away now, if you do that, I might not hunt you down and slaughter you like the scum you are."

Gourry reviewed that in his head for the instant it took to draw his sword, it sounded too… too… well it didn't sound right. He'd have to think of something better, but later, as the fight demanded his attention.

"Shut up! You stay out of this, it's not your business!" The lead man said, taking a step towards Gourry. He probably meant it to look menacing, but it came off as unsteady and unsure."Who the hell are you, anyway?" The bandit asked.

"Why should I let Scum use my name?" Gourry retorted, bring himself into a defensive stance ready to spring to the offence. Taking in the placement of everyone he figured he'd have enough time to yawn between opponents… but he would keep on his toes, there's not any point in opening yourself to underestimating your opponent.

"Great, it's a battle of cliched men." Lina muttered under her breath, Gourry couldn't hear that because of the indignation the bandits were voicing.

The bandit's leader suddenly ordered them all to attack Gourry first. Which was what he'd hoped, the easiest plan was useless if they came at both of them or just concentrated on their victim, but they'd played into his hand. Their charge was doomed as it began, Gourry's opening strike knocked swords out of two bandit's hands and sliced off the straps of a breastplate on a third. Gourry didn't particularly want to injure anyone, but then again he wasn't adverse to killing the whole lot of them if he had to.

Gourry sprinted into a counter-charge just as Lina was contemplating helping the big guy out, but on second thought… "Eeeek, Help me! Save me! Ohhh, eeeek!" Lina screamed, it was after all the part that the girls were supposed to play when their hero came to save the day.

A short time later Gourry had dispatched the last bandit, save their boss-man, with a solid strike to the neck with the flat of his blade. This left Gourry and the boss, who fell into a circling duel-like 'dance' … which was cut short by the sudden movement Gourry made when he lunged forward and bounced around to the guy's side, just out of sword-reach.

"Ha, what kind of swordsman are you? You didn't even hit me!" The bandit thrust a finger at Gourry, causing his clothes to fall off and into a nice ring-shaped pile around his feet. "Guh-uh, I-I-eeee…" The bandit sputtered then ran off in shame.

"Hey, that wasn't bad." Lina said, almost high praise, as she looked up at Gourry.

Gourry turned to the bandit's victim, "Are you alright?" he said in as smooth a manner as he could, then got a good look at Lina. There she was, a blazing red-haired girl, short, probably twelve. Gourry couldn't help a jaw-dropped stare at the small girl.

'Oh wow! He's totally stricken with me!' Lina thought, 'My, slim, sleek, extra-petite body, my big expressive eyes, my super-cute face… he's hopelessly in love with me, love at first sight!'

"Um, hey, little girl, where's your parents?" Gourry said, looking around for anyone who she could be traveling with, while muttering to himself, "Ah, I guess everyone you save can't be a babe… well, even wide-eyed little girls need help too… I guess it could be worse, it could be a nun… or a small boy who would idolize me and follow me around like a stray dog."

Lina's spirits crashed with the first part… sure she was kinda short for her age, and underdeveloped, but… what the heck was that about nuns and idolizing dogs? "Sometimes I wish my hearing wasn't _quite_ so good, like now." Lina muttered to herself.

'Well, he probably thinks I can't hear him grumbling, and he did save me… even if I had everything under control myself, so I should thank him, it is how I was raised.' Lina thought to herself, then turned to Gourry, who was mentioning how out-of-luck he was. "Gee, thanks-for-saving-me." Lina blurted out, it was forced and sounded like she was saying something distasteful.

"Eh, no problem, little-girl, there's no need to thank me…" Gourry replied. "Were you hurt?"

"Little-girl?" Lina questioned the big blond swordsman.

"Well, it's dangerous for little-girls to go walking out alone… Say, where _are_ your parents?"

"Oh, I'm all alone." she answered, intending to explain it further.

"That's no good." Gourry interrupted, "I suppose I'll have to walk you home, which way do you live… this way?" Gourry pointed down a side path that could have been a farmers path or a game trail.

"Wait, no, I'm fine… hold it." Lina said.

"That way?" Gourry pointed down the road Lina had come.

"Hold it!" Lina screamed, getting fed up with this guy and his 'big-brother-ing'.

Gourry looked up at her and stared, waiting for her to explain or say something.

"Well, um, you see, I'm traveling, um, alone…" Lina said, then realized that was no good for getting rid of this guy, "I was headed for Atlas City! Wanna take me there?" She hastily added, question and all, hoping that it would too far out of his way, and at ten days away, Atlas City was pretty far away. 'He cant buy that.' Lina thought to herself.

"I see." Gourry said, nodding. "You poor thing, it's so far away and you have to go there all alone… but don't worry, you're not alone any more, I'll take you to your home in Atlas City!"

"Uh, well, I…" Lina was surprised at his readiness to help someone, she'd really been hoping to get that ridiculous idea out of his head. "I just like to travel around and see things, ok?"

"Well then it's settled, I'll see you to Atlas City!" Gourry declared, sure this little-girl seemed a bit weird, like she was trying to get rid of him or something. But it simply wouldn't do to leave a little-girl wandering about all alone.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa!' Lina thought, 'Slow down buddy, you're so quick to help me out that you're a nuisance!'

"I understand completely, you need somebody to take you there." Gourry continued.

'No, Atlas City is TEN DAYS from here! If I spent that much time with 'big-brother' here, I'll get a stomach-ache from the stress!' Lina thought, frantically trying to find a way to dissuade the guy of his notion of escorting her.

"Now that I have everything straight, let's be off!" Gourry said with finality and firmness that made Lina wish she'd just left it at 'thanks mister' and walked off.

"But that's not 'straight' at all!" Lina mumbled… "Oy, this guy…"

"Oh, right! I haven't given you my name." Gourry said, "I'm Gourry Gabriev, a traveling warrior and mercenary."

"Now look!" Lina began, but then thought better of it, he did seem like a decent sort of guy, and he was only being helpful… and he was genuinely concerned about her… so maybe it wouldn't be so bad to let him escort her to the city.

"Come on," Gourry said, his next statement toppling the scales Lina was mentally balancing, "I'll get you something off the kiddie menu in the next village, alright?"

Gourry had already begun to walk back in the direction of Atlas City, when he stopped and turned around. "Oh yeah, little-girl, I forgot to ask, what's your name?"

"It's Lina." Lina half-yelled at him, just before breaking into a trot to catch up with him, "Lina Inverse!"

• • • • • • • • • • •

Later, Gourry and Lina made their way into a small village just outside the woods. It being slightly after noon they were both very hungry. So, upon finding a restaurant they immediately entered and were led to their table quickly by the waiter, who handed them their menus and waited at the edge of the table, as everyone else had already ordered he could afford to wait on a bit for these two to order.

"Well… What should I get?" Lina asked eyeing the menu suspiciously.

"I said it's my treat…" Gourry said with a smile, "so get whatever you like."

Lina's head shot up, "Really? You're not kidding are you?"

"Nope." Gourry replied, "get whatever you want."

"Okay!" Lina exclaimed, motioning the waiter over she indicated a whole section of the menu, "I want all of these."

"Wha…" The waiter looked at the courses she indicated, then back at her, there was no way she'd be able to finish this. Maybe he could win some money from the cooks by betting that she wouldn't be able to eat it all. "Okay miss." he said with a twinkle in his eye.

"And I'll have…" Gourry stared at the menu for the briefest of seconds, then indicated what he wanted, "This, this, this… and this… in triple portions."

"Triple portions?" The waiter stared at Gourry, sure he was big, but twelve meals… this might be his lucky day, he could finally win back some of that money he'd lost making stupid bets, now he could start making smart ones.

When their food arrived Gourry and Lina attacked it like voracious, ravenous animals, thereby scaring most of the rest of the other patrons out of the establishment. There were several small fights when Lina strayed from her side of the table into Gourry's food, but other than that it was peaceful, as peaceful as two people eating at accelerated rates, emitting occasional slurping dinnertime sound, and grunting at each other occasionally can be that is. The waiter, who observed all this, looked on with horror.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Ah, I'm so full…" Lina sighed.

"Are you sure, there's some soup left." Gourry said, nodding to a bowl that was only a quarter full.

"Oh, no. I couldn't…" Lina laughed, then gestured to her belly, "See, my stomach's about to burst."

"I see." Gourry said, glancing down, "It looks ready to pop like a balloon…"

"What was that?" Lina demanded.

"Um, nothing at all." Gourry said, though a bit defensively, "Nothing worth fighting over, anyway."

"Pardon me good travelers." Came the voice of an old man, interrupting the fight's beginning and drawing attention to himself.

Gourry and Lina looked up to see a wizened old man with a walking stick approach them. He had odd hair that flared out and a long, white beard that drooped nearly to his knees, though the most remarkable thing about him was that he was shorter than even Lina.

The old man stopped right before the table and coughed a few times. "I am Saman, the elder of this village." he said, then continued after coughing once more, "Excuse my again, but would you, miss, happen to be Lina Inverse, the famous sorcery genius?"

Gourry looked up at Lina who was acting embarrassed, like she would laugh or blush any second, she did neither, instead she rubbed the back of her head and said "Well, um, yeah, that's me."

"What?" Gourry blinked at her for a moment, "So you're a sorceress?"

Lina's eyes suddenly narrowed at Gourry, "What, did you think I dressed this way for fun? Of course I am, what did you think I was?"

"Well, I thought you could be a waitress or a librarian." Gourry replied so innocently that Lina nearly pulled her own hair.

"What kind of a waitress wears something like this?" Lina demanded angrily.

"Well, I thought it could be one of those theme restaurants…" Gourry explained, it made sense, in the kind of way that made Lina grit her teeth.

"Are you blind or stupid?" Lina yelled at Gourry, though she really didn't have to, as he was sitting right across the table from her.

"Excuse me… Might I continue?" The Elder interjected into the blossoming argument thus, once again, preventing a fight between the two, "You see, we have need of you, the Dragon Spooker", for your bandit-killing skills, Lina Inverse."

"So, you're famous are you?" Gourry asked Lina, who merely nodded in response.

"Hold on," Lina began, "bandit killer I can understand… but why Dragon Spooker?"

"It's short for Dragons Step Past Out Of Clear Revulsion." The elder explained, then laughed, "Get it, S.P.O.O.C.R., Spooker?" The whole thing degenerated into a coughing fit that ended with the old man hacking something up just in time to beg Lina not to hurt him.

Fortunately for the old man Gourry had restrained Lina from using her chair to bludgeon the old man to death, and when Lina had calmed down enough the elder continued once more, after explaining once more that he didn't make it up.

"So what do you want from me?" Lina asked, forcing herself to be civil, though she was clearly still steamed about the whole 'Dragon Spooker' thing.

"Well, there's a gang of bandits that have been harassing the town lately…" The elder began.

"You mean the _Dragon Fangs_?" Lina asked, interrupting the oldster once more.

"Oh, so you know about them?" The old man asked in reply.

"Yeah," Lina nodded, sitting back in her chair, "If that's the case, then I've already taken care of them."

"You WHAT?" The elder couldn't believe that she'd taken care of everything…

"Yeah, I got most of them yesterday," Lina said with a grin, then indicated Gourry, "and this guy took care of the rest today."

"Oh, so you mean those guys from before…" Gourry muttered to himself.

"You managed to kill the black dragon!" The elder took a step bak in shock. "The one those bandits were keeping as a pet… the one that made the _Dragon Fangs_ unstoppable for our city-guard!"

"You are truly great, Lina Inverse!" The old man looked like he was about to do a dance, then ran off saying, "I should tell everyone the good news!"

"So, uh, did you kill the dragon?" Gourry asked as the watched the old man leave.

"No, I didn't even know they had one." Lina admitted.

"So then you mean… that there's a dragon running around loose?" Gourry asked calmly.

"I guess." Lina shrugged.

"'I guess'!" Gourry exclaimed in shock, "You've got to do something!"

"It's not really my problem." Lina countered, "but if you want to go hunting a dragon, go right ahead. God only knows where it is now."

"THE BLACK DRAGON!" Came screams from the street.

"God… and all those villagers." Gourry said dryly, making a bit of a joke at the situation.

Gourry ran out of the restaurant dragging Lina behind him only to run into Saman.

"You didn't kill the dragon?" He accused irately, "What is the meaning of this?"

"I never said I killed it," Lina began, "I only said I took care of the bandits, the _Dragon Fangs_."

"I don't believe this!" Saman said, "How could you not kill it?"

"Well, I didn't know it was there." Lina replied.

"Good lord…" Saman swore as the dragon took a pass at the outskirts of town, snatching two of Phil's prize winning hogs, and turning around in mid-air to take another pass at the village. This time it looked like it would swoop down very near where they were standing.

"So, how much are you willing to pay?" Lina asked.

"What?" Saman asked, tearing his attention from the dragon for a second to stare at the small sorceress standing near him.

"How much, for killing the dragon?" Lina repeated, sure she'd get a good deal out of it.

"T-t-twenty gold pieces." Saman said, it was half of what was left in the city treasury, but if he didn't pay there wouldn't be a city left.

"Hum, thirty." Lina said, making a big show of lolling about.

"That's a lot!" Saman exclaimed.

"Do you want me to kill it before it wrecks your village?" Lina asked.

"Aaaa, twenty-five." The old man offered.

"Lina…" Gourry said in a disapproving tone.

"Fine!" Lina exclaimed, then grabbed Gourry by the collar and began dragging him off, "But you're coming too!"

The dragon overtook Lina and Gourry as they were running, but they finally caught up as they entered a clearing in the wreckage where it had landed.

"Wow! It's huge!" Lina said, looking at the giant black dragon as it ate some bacon, freshly cooked from the remains of what was the village forge.

"How did a bunch of bandits get that thing?" Lina asked Saman, who had somehow kept up with them.

"Legend has it that the gang boss found it when he was a child after it fell from a wagon of a performing circus when it was little… so little that he could carry it in his arms, but apparently he grew."

"Yeah, apparently!" Gourry couldn't believe that Saman had said that… it was rather intuitively obvious to the casual observer.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you to be respectful of your elders?" Lina angrily yelled at Gourry, "Anyway…" Lina became rather sickeningly sweet in her tone of voice, and that spooked Gourry for some reason he couldn't put a finger on.

"Ray Wing!" Lina cast a spell on Gourry that sent him shooting up towards the dragon just as it was raising a three pound slab of pork on a pitchfork to its mouth.

"Distract him for me will you Gourry!" Lina called to him as he sailed.

The only reply he could think of was rather cliched, but it fit the situation, "I'll get you for this Lina!" He yelled back in response as he drew his sword and thrust it into the middle of the dragon's snout, right between the eyes… unfortunately that was he had to hold onto his sword and pray it didn't slip out or he'd be dragon chow, but fortunately he was out of immediate danger, except for the fall that was going to happen because of the wild rearing and whiping of the dragon's neck in response to the pain.

"You'd better leave, it's dangerous out." Lina said to Saman before turning her attention to the black dragon and being hit with an incoming Gourry, who'd been shaken off moments before.

"Get off!" Lina struggled under the dazed form of Gourry. "You're heavy! Get off!"

The dragon, meanwhile, was looking for a better place to eat its catch, and it spied the perfect little garden shed on the other side of the clearing, so it began to move its bulky form across the clearing to the shed. On its way, it almost stepped on Gourry, but there was a nasty squirming thing right under him, and nobody wants to step in a nasty, squirmy-thing, so it sidestepped.

Now, this was all fine and good, except that it made Lina angry, really angry. There was no holding back now. Squirming out from under Gourry she cast a quick revival spell on him, then she smacked him to his senses. "Gourry, I need you to be a decoy again."

"Again…" Gourry muttered, seeming to be in the state right after waking up in the middle of the night, where nothing but sleep matters. "Yeeeeaaaaa." He yawned, which was taken for an agreement by Lina.

This time she pushed him and he stumbled along, waking up only when he was about to fall.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaat!" Gourry screamed as he found himself nearly running at a black dragon, completely unarmed.

Meanwhile Lina was preparing a dragon slave, the most powerful attack spell in all of Black Magic.

The dragon swung its head down to look at Gourry, who did the only thing he could and leapt at his sword, which was still stuck in the dragon. The dragon pulled back, but not quickly enough to prevent Gourry from getting a hold on his sword again. This time he wouldn't let go.

"Dragon Slave!" Lina finished, sending a giant orb of destruction into the giant black dragon.

• • • • • • • • • • •

a few minutes later Gourry was digging himself out of a pile of rubble. Miraculously he'd not been killed by that… overkill of a blast.

"See, Gourry, that's the power of my sure-fire, one-shot, Dragon Slave. The most powerful black magic attack there is!" Lina said, landing softly next to him.

"Please don't do that again without warning me…" Gourry moaned, he'd be sore for a week, if he was lucky… given recent luck it'd be months before he was fully healed.

"But it makes everything turn out right!" Lina protested.

"Like HELL this is all right!" Saman appeared from somewhere, covered in dust and with debris sticking out of his beard.

"Ah, Mr. Saman! Don't forget the money you promised…" Lina said reminding him.

"Like hell we'll pay!" Saman said through grit teeth, or were they grit gums? "You were hired to keep the dragon from destroying our village! Just take a look at it!"

Sure enough, there was a giant crater right in the center of the town, in fact it was so big that most of the town had vanished.

"Gah!" Gourry stared in amazement at the sheer destruction… it was worse that an earthquake.

"Well, the Dragon Slave is pretty powerful, isn't it?" Lina said nodding in agreement with hersef.

"It's TOO powerful!" Saman exclaimed as a mob formed behind him.

"Well, maybe… I think I'll…" Lina said, sounding rather distracted, "let Gourry take care of this!"

Lina ran the other way as fast as she could, with Gourry only steps behind, and fled the mob. What a way to end lunch, being chased out of town, or the remains of one, anyway.

**

* * *

Author's Notes**: 

Well, this one came out fast, and while it was fun, don't expect another so quickly. I hope you enjoyed it and would like more.


	6. Chapter 005

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 5 **

After outrunning the villagers Gourry and Lina took a break for their stomachs to settle; it never feels good to run like that on a full stomach, especially after eating so much. After the urge to empty his stomach had passed, Gourry asked Lina if she was alright.

"Do I look alright?" Lina replied, lifting her head out of a hole beside the road, possibly a rabbit-hole, and tried to glare at him. It didn't work too well, however, because the effect was ruined by the sudden ballooning of her cheeks and the rush to vomit in the hole.

"How did you manage it?" Lina asked, eyeing him and wiping her mouth.

"Manage what?" Gourry asked, scratching his head.

"Not throwing up."

"Oh…" Gourry shrugged, "I don't know."

Lina grumbled something in reply and, a few minutes later, was ready to get continue on to the next town.

• • • • • • • • • • •

When Lina and Gourry reached the next town there was an hour and a half or two hours of daylight left, just enough time to visit some of the town's shops, which Lina was excited about. She really wanted to get to a magic shop, but just before entering she ran off, leaving Gourry alone for a while.

Gourry stretched sore muscles as he walked about, until seeing a doctor/white-mage establishment, and after spending a little more than he would have liked, he exited the establishment feeling much better without the sores, bruises and other injuries form being caught in the periphery of Lina's Dragon Slave earlier.

After waiting outside the magic shop for a while he decided to look inside and see if maybe Lina had entered while he was away, but a quick reconnoitering of the shop revealed that she had yet to return.

Whistling an aimless tune Gourry removed his armor and began inspecting it. Its blue lacquer had been chipped and there was significant carbon scoring, but it was still quite serviceable, so Gourry shrugged it back on and continued to wait.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Lina burst in the shop some indeterminate time later, just as Gourry was about to fall asleep. Wiping the sleep from his eyes he joined Lina at the counter where she was trying to sell various items to the shopkeeper.

"Ah, I see…" The shopkeeper muttered examining a large jewel-like item that Lina was offering, "You made this yourself, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah!" Lina replied.

The shopkeeper gave a chuckle, probably at her enthusiasm, and complemented her work. "You're a good sorceress, making something of this quality… I can give you a decent price."

"Great! I knew I could count on you pops!" Lina said with another smile as the shopkeeper moved on to some of Lina's other items.

"Ah, I see this has a spell cast on it." The shopkeeper muttered to himself as he examined a knife. "I think I can take it, if you sell me something else too."

"Oh?" Lina asked, surprised by the sudden change in mannerisms that he displayed, "Like what?"

"YOUR LIFE!" The older man yelled as he leapt over the counter and thrust the knife at Lina, who somehow blocked it with a metal statuette as she dodged to the side.

Gourry sprang into action grabbing the man in a double-nelson, but it didn't do any good as he was thrown off and into Lina, knocking them both down, which was particularly lucky for both of them because the old man followed up by ripping out the counter and throwing it at the two, or rather where they had been.

"Get off!" Lina yelled in Gourry's ear.

"That wasn't normal strength…" Gourry observed out loud as he rolled onto his feet and into a defensive pose. He had height, weight, and leverage advantages when he'd put the shopkeeper in that hold, but he'd been flung easily… that, and the whole ripping-out-a-counter-and-throwing-it thing. There was someone here who might know the answer, after all she had the knife that seemed to be the cause of all this, "What happened to him?" Gourry asked Lina.

"It's the knife!" Lina screamed, to which Gourry was about to make a rather rude noise, "It had some kind of weird spell on it! I thought it was just to keep it sharp!"

"So, you were just going to sell it even though it could be dangerous?" Gourry retorted, amazed at the irresponsibility… but then, he shouldn't expect so much from Lin… _the kid_.

"Okay, so maybe it's my fault… a little." Lina admitted in a deceptively demure tone.

Gourry was about to scold her some more when more urgent matters presented themselves, that is the matter of survival. The shopkeeper was advancing slowly, and laughing softly under his breath, it could have been a friendly chuckle, except for the malevolent glint in his eyes.

"Come on!" Lina said grabbing Gourry and starting out for the exit, which he already knew to be blocked by the remains of the counter. "It's blocked!"

"Sure is," Gourry said dryly, and with a calmness that wasn't quite appropriate, then added "kid."

"Gourry!" Lina responded to the slight goad, as if it were the most important thing and there wasn't a knife-wielding madman about to slice-and-dice their bodies.

Gourry ignored her and, keeping his eyes on the shopkeeper, said "On my mark run around him and out the back."

Gourry waited until the old man was in a lunge, he didn't have enhanced speed, and his moves were easy to see coming. So, Gourry grabbed the mans arm while he was lunging and pulled him off his feet, over extending and unbalancing the old man long enough for the two to dash out the back.

Now, out of the cramped confines of the store Gourry could get some power behind his swings and have room to maneuver… he was drawing his sword when Lina put her hand over his and begged him not to hurt the older man, 'He's under the knife's control.' she said.

"Well, can't you cast a spell to make him go to sleep or something?" Gourry asked.

"No!" Lina said vehemently, almost yelling, then fiddled with her fingers as she said in a soft tone, "I-I can't…"

Lina wouldn't admit it to Gourry, but she had nearly exhausted her supply of magical power for the day. It was the 'day-before' warning that signaled when a sorceress or priestess's powers would be… limited, due to certain… cycles.

"So, I've got to get the knife away without hurting him?" Gourry asked, guessing about cause-and-effect concerning the knife's magic, just as the man stepped out of the door.

"Right!" Lina nodded enthusiastically.

"Can I do it without hurting him?" Gourry asked, hand ready at the hilt of his sword, as he and the possessed man circled each other. Gourry critically examined his skills, he might be good at tournaments, or in skirmishes, but he didn't have the skills necessary for disarming him without some form of maiming. For example, he could draw his sword and disembowel him, behead him, cut his arm or hand off, he could even cut his fingers off… but he couldn't simply disarm him safely.

The situation had illuminated a weak part in the Gabriev style, which was that as a blade there were no real ways of disarming an opponent. The sword of Light however, was more versatile and, could easily disarm someone in several ways… but he didn't have time to unlatch the blade right now, so that option was out.

"Run for it!" Gourry yelled back at Lina as he broke from circling the old man and ran along the inside perimeter of the fenced-in back yard.

"What, wait!" Lina said grabbing on to Gourry as he ran past, his hair being the only thing she could grab, though all it did was cause her to get dragged along with him as he ran.

"You started this mess, you clean it up!" Gourry said, trying to ignore that he was pulling Lina around by his hair.

"We can't just leave him here like this!" Lina yelled back at Gourry, which wasn't all that necessary considering she was facing towards him.

"Raaaawha!" The man yelled as he leaped at the two, and he would have gotten one of them if he'd made up his mind on who to attack. As it was he jumped in and cut Gourry's hair, causing Gourry to stumble forward and Lina to fall backward.

"Heh, heh, heh…" The man chuckled as he licked the blade and looked from Lina to Gourry as if deciding between two deserts, and when he looked back at Lina Gourry knew which he had chose.

Gourry scrambled to his feet drawing his sword in a desperate attempt to save Lina, but even as he leapt he could see that he wouldn't make it in time… Gourry braced for the inevitable scream from Lina, in her death throes, which would be shortly followed my the man's own… a foot of steel through the his chest, piercing his heart. That moment never came.

Just when he pulled back to strike, the old man's wife burst out of the back door of the shop, grabbed his ear, coincidentally causing him to drop the knife, and pulled him back into the trashed shop while giving him an earful.

"Wow, I guess a wife is stronger than a cursed knife." Lina observed.

"Apparently." Gourry replied, somewhat shocked at not having to kill the old man… oh, and that Lina was alive.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gourry and Lina decided to continue on, hightailing it out of town, mostly at Lina's insistence. Gourry didn't think too much of it, nobody had been hurt, and the physical damage was really only a counter and several items, but still Lina insisted that they should be going. Gourry guessed that it was some superstition on her part that trouble was following her, or something like that. Fortunately for him, he kept his mouth shut.

It was a little while later, maybe twenty minutes out of town, that Lina and Gourry settled down to camp for the night, which they did away from the road near a stream. Lina volunteered to catch the fish if Gourry would build the fire, so, after gathering dry wood and preparing everything, Gourry got a nice, small, cook-fire going.

While Gourry had been starting the fire, Lina had already caught several fish and was already cooking them. That was unusual, most of the time it took more than some time and patience to catch fish… maybe there was some sort of fish-catching spell or something, Gourry shrugged mentally as he asked, "So, how'd you manage to catch so many so quickly?"

"Well…" Lina began, trailing off and turned a fish on its spit, "it's my own original magic spell!" she exclaimed.

"Oh… so then you can do little things besides that excessive Dragon Slave…" Gourry observed.

"Well, even an idiot can learn one trick." Lina replied, "You can't be the best without knowing the big _and_ the small spells."

"Oh, I see…" Gourry replied, it was true of swordsmanship as well. As he'd learned earlier there were times where killing and maiming were neither necessary nor desirable… that would have to be something he would need to correct. He decided then and there that he would learn nonlethal and disarming moves as well.

After a while Lina declared that the fish were done and tore into several devouring them whole while Gourry was careful not to eat certain things, bones mostly and some of the internal organs, which he seemed to have heard or read about sometime.

When Gourry threw those things Lina burst out with indignation. "Hey, you're supposed to eat all of it! See!" She demonstrated by eating another whole fish.

"But I can't eat the guts…" Gourry complained.

"Why not?" Lina asked, the obvious question, adding her opinion, "The guts are the best part."

Unfortunately for Gourry, what he thought he'd read somewhere suddenly fled his mental grasp, leaving him grasping for anything to answer with. Just then, Gourry's eye fell on some of the little caterpillar-worm things Lina had used for bait.

"Well, the stomach's part of the guts, right?" Gourry asked, suppressing a smile at the joke he was going to play.

"Yeah, what about it?" Lina asked, uncertain of what the big blonde was getting at.

"Well, you used these for bait, right?" Gourry held up one of the squirming green creatures, "That means it's in the stomach too."

Lina blinked once then spat out the food in her mouth… "I don't want fish any more." She whined.

"Well, there was the inn and tavern back in town." Gourry suggested, it didn't matter too much to him, he'd gotten used to sleeping out of doors, but a nice soft bed might be a good change.

"Yes, lets!" Lina exclaimed, bursting with energy suddenly, as she preceded to break camp.

Gourry sighed, "But what about avoiding rumors?" he asked, sighting one of the reasons Lina insisted that they continue on earlier in the day.

"Gourry! I'm surprised at you!" Lina snapped, "Why should you care what others are saying about you? You know the truth, so it shouldn't bother you, right?"

"Uh…" Gourry said, not sure where to pick up the argument…then he decided that arguing about it simply wasn't worth it, sighed, and agreed with Lina that he shouldn't worry about possible rumors.

• • • • • • • • • • •

It was no surprise that a half-hour Gourry found himself in a tavern/inn eating dinner about thirty minutes later. What _did_ surprise him though, was spotting several trolls walk passed a front window towards the door.

"Say, Lina…" Gourry interrupted, earning a scowl from the diminutive red-headed sorceress.

"What Gourry?" Lina growled through a ham leg.

"Can you handle yourself in a fight?" Gourry asked, nonchalantly, so as to not alert her to the imminent entrance of the trolls.

"Yeah, I'm pretty good… if I do say so myself." Lina praised herself.

"Good." Gourry replied, earning a questioning look from Lina, "Then I'll leave them up to you." Gourry pointed at the front door just as the lead troll broke through it.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: 

Alright! I did it. I finished the chapter in time to post it on my birthday, granted it's a little shorter than I would have hoped, but here's a nice cliffhanger. Next time, we'll meet Zelgadiss, my favorite character! Yay!

Now, if you, dear reader, would like to do something special for me (this being my birthday), then please take some time to critically review this story so far. Thank you.


	7. Chapter 006

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 6 **

"Eh?" Lina was genuinely surprised when a troll, the apparent lead of a group, kicked the door in.

Several trolls poured in the tavern, interrupted only by a man wrapped in bandages from head to toe wearing a cape similar to Lina's. "There she is!" He pointed directly at Lina, "Get her!"

"What? Oh my!" Lina exclaimed, then in her best acting style said, "What, I'm Sophia! The girl you're looking for isn't…"

"ENOUGH! I don't care!" The bandaged, mummy-like man bellowed making a swipe to the air before commanding his trolls forward. "Get her I said!"

The trolls began their charge and the bandaged man continued, almost as if on a monologue. "I don't care what your name is! All I care about is that you're the twerp that stole that bandit treasure."

"So…" Gourry muttered as he played with his drink, "That's what you did to get those guys after you…"

"Shut up!" Lina whispered back, still hoping to misdirect this group until she could make a good getaway, though looking at the trolls charging that quickly became an impossibility. Lina, improvising as she often did, jumped on the table in a fighting pose and yelled "all right!" at the trolls.

"Let's take this outside!" She continued yelling, pointing back out the door.

The mummy took a step back at the unexpected response from Lina, then gathered himself and responded with a yell, still a bit unbalanced - mentally - by Lina's tell, "No! I don't want to!" Sure, it was a childish, immature yell, and didn't lend him any 'intimidation-points', but nobody's perfect.

Gourry saw the effect that the unexpected responses were having on the group's leader and sprang into action, slamming his hands down on the table as he abruptly stood and yelled, "DIDN'T YOUR MOTHER EVER TELL YOU NOT TO FIGHT IN THE HOUSE?"

The mummy-man actually stumbled back a few steps, before he opened his mouth. "Well.. yes…" he said sheepishly before throwing his finger again at Lina, yelling, "But she started it!"

And with that yell the fighting broke out in earnest. Luckily the interplay between Lina and the bandaged man had allowed the majority of the room to take cover, although admittedly a wooden table isn't much cover from either a violent maniac or a troll, especially wen said maniac was quite powerful magically speaking.

Lina bounded over a charging troll's head and rolled under another's legs, before bouncing off a wall and completing a spell she'd been muttering and touching every troll she could with her now-glowing white gloves. Then she landed nest to where Gourry was standing, leaning against the wall, arms crossed watching the fight.

"Welcome back." Gourry said dryly, he'd been expecting something to happen, but she'd instead just bounced around like a rubber ball, impressive acrobatics, but useless when fighting trolls.

Lina looked a bit deflated at the tone Gourry gave her, but then brightened as she asked, "Can you wound those trolls?"

Gourry nodded, not taking his eyes off the trolls, "It wouldn't do any good though, they regenerate." Gourry kept his mind on the here-now, instead of letting it wander back to dwell on Yeal and that unfortunate incident.

"Oh, come on! Anything'll do, even a little scratch." Lina encouraged him… and tried pushing him along.

"Alright, alright." Gourry said, "Any little scratch, huh?"

Gourry reached down to their table and grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl that was lying there, the interesting thing about these nuts were that they were fairly heavy while most nuts were fairly light, they also had fairly sharp edges and came to an almond-like point.

Ammunition in hand, Gourry flung the nuts into the advancing trolls. The nuts, predictably, did negligible damage… until a few seconds had elapsed and the trolls suddenly broke out into massive gouges starting from the little scratches from the nuts, and fell into writhing mounds of flesh on the floor for an instant before dissolving into nothingness.

It was a gruesome sight, one that would give almost everyone in the room nightmares tonight, but it had the advantage of eliminating all the danger from the trolls. Well, all except the three that were acting as the bandaged man's bodyguard.

"Wha-what the hell?" the aforementioned man said in an unsteady voice, perfectly understandable given that his trolls were supposed to have advanced healing abilities.

"What's going on?" Gourry asked, more than a little disturbed by the whole thing, it was more like a dream than real, especially considering his previous experience with trolls.

"I cast a spell on them!" Lina said, explaining in a confidant, almost laid-back manner, "It turns their healing powers back on itself. In other words, since the troll's healing power is so great, when it gets turned around it's enormous. So a small wound destroy's the whole body."

"It works really well." Gourry said, still starring at the scene. "But he still has some trolls!"

Gourry nodded toward the mummy who was trying to persuade his bodyguard to attack, but due to a little intelligence and an instinct for self-preservation, they were understandably reluctant to join the fight as the rest of their group had.

Finally one of the trolls had decided that he'd had enough, and that he could take on the little one, so he lunged at the spot where Gourry and Lina were standing, smashing the wall an instant after they'd dodged his attack.

The troll rebounded spinning around to face Lina and took another swing with his club which she dodged, pulling out her sword to try to counter. Gourry, who had been tripped by a leg sticking out from under a table, looked on as the troll let Lina thrust her sword into its belly, then grabbed it and pulled the sword deeper, dragging Lina along.

'So, that's what it was trying to do…' Gourry thought, helpless to get to Lina in time, as he watched the troll bring up his sword. It was obvious, to him at least, that a troll could take an enemy weapon into its body and immobilize it long enough to get a good telling hit in, or perhaps let one of it's companions take care of it. Simply put, their healing power could be used in tactics, allowing 'sacrifice' tactics that weren't.

Knowing it would be too late, Gourry still grabbed the hilt of his sword and sprang forward even as he drew it from his sheath. He needn't have bothered, as he landed Lina let forth a magical lightning-bolt that traveled through her sword and directly into the troll, frying its central nervous system rather nicely… though it was, unfortunately, still alive enough for it to regenerate.

"Now to take care of you!" Lina said with a somewhat malicious smile as she turned to the bandaged man and began to loudly recite a spell.

"Ah, ah!" The mummy took a step back seeing a glow start to form above the girl's hand, reminiscent of the glow he'd seen the instant before he'd been burned so badly. "It's a fireball! Run, run!" he yelled as he bolted out the door.

Lina watched as he exited, quickly, and his few remaining trolls ran right behind him.

"Whew!" Lina sighed in relief, she wasn't up to her full capacity, but that was something she wanted _nobody_ to know, especially someone who was obviously an enemy.

Gourry went wide-eyed, "Don't just go 'whew', what about that fireball?" Gourry was near panic, after all, a ball of magical energy that would explode on contact wasn't something to 'toss around'.

Lina just giggled and tossed it in the air; Gourry did the only thing he could duck and cover, duck-and-cover. "It's just a lighting spell!" Lina said, giggling even more with Gourry's reaction.

Gourry partially uncovered his head and peeked up, seeing no immanent destruction he breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, and dusted himself off, saying "That's _not_ funny Lina, not funny at all."

At about this time the innkeeper was surveying the damages done, "What have you done?" he almost screeched, obviously he wasn't 'cooly surveying the damage'. He continued with a growled "Just look at this place! I-I-I'm ruined!"

"Gee, I'm sorry for all this trouble…" Lina said it in a tone that would have been a whine if it wasn't for the contrite undertones.

Lina had switched her displayed emotions, from happy-at-a-prank to oh-man-I'm-so-_so-_**so**-sorry, so quickly that Gourry was thrown off balance. He made a mental note to not fully trust her open displays of emotion.

"Maybe… this could make it up to you?" Lina half-asked/half-begged, offering a palm-sized jewel.

"Well, uh…" The innkeeper was thrown off balance by the generous offer, such a gem would cover all the repair expenses, their meal, their stay for the night, and just maybe a bit more.

"I-it's the best I can do for you." Lina said in that half-pleading tone again.

"Well… I guess, this'll cover it, so never mind." The innkeeper said, happy that he wasn't ruined after all, "I'll go see to it that your rooms are promptly prepared." The innkeeper said, excusing himself from the conversation.

"Lucky!" Lina hopped up happily, she wouldn't have to sleep outside tonight… that and she had convinced the innkeeper to accept one of her lowest-value gems.

Gourry looked at the little girl and shivered at the sheer manipulation and deception of people the kid had just shown… for some reason thought that she would make a good used-car salesman… which was odd, because when he thought about it he couldn't tell you what a car was.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Later, in Lina's room, she was explaining everything that had happened to Gourry, though he'd already deduced all the main points. It was obvious that Lina had something that someone wanted. And, according to Gourry's analysis, they had more resources than your average person, after all most people don't have the clout to bring in a large group of trolls to do their bidding. So, that narrowed it down to either the rich, or the powerful, too bad Gourry knew virtually no one in either of those categories, and even if he did chances were still slim that he'd know who was behind the whole thing. So, it really came back to square one. Lina had something, quite probably stolen from the bandits, that someone else wanted.

"But to find me…" Lina continued her explanation, drawing Gourry's attention a bit, "They would have to use magic."

"Well, can you do that?" Gourry asked, it was quite simply that he'd never seen magic that wasn't used for destruction or healing… except just recently with Lina's fish spell and the light spell.

"Whatever it is that Mummy Man wants is probably allowing him to track me as well." Lina replied nodding.

"Oh, I see…" Gourry said, wondering what other things that could be done with magic… then getting the feeling that he really didn't want to find out.

"Well…" Gourry said as he got up, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Who's there?" Lina asked.

"Someone wishing to conduct business with you." The voice came from the other side, soft, yet forceful. A voice that held a resolve not to be denied. "You possess an item that I will pay any price you name to obtain."

"I don't believe this…" Lina whispered at Gourry, who only nodded in reply.

The voice cut off what she was about to say next. "I understand that I am very unusual to you and that you must be suspicious… But I can assure you that, for now at least, I have no intention of harming you… Like I said, I only wish to do a business transaction."

"And what does he mean by _that_?" Lina growled under her breath then almost yelled at the door, "Does the term 'for now', or 'intention', change once you're through the door?"

There was a short, dry, laugh from the other end. "You're quite shrewd, I see… so saying 'don't worry' would be worse than useless…" There was a pause, then the voice resumed, "I believe that you have a competent bodyguard, so you shouldn't worry about it too much… if you trust him, that is."

Lina glanced over at Gourry, wondering if she _could_ trust him, then shook her head, he was obviously trying to play with her sense of paranoia.

"Bodyguard?" Gourry questioned, knowing full well that the stranger was referring to him, but if he was using magic to eavesdrop it might confuse him a bit.

"He means you!" Lina whispered furiously at Gourry, then turned to the door, almost yelling again, "I'm warning you, any funny business and you'll get a powerful attack spell you won't forget!"

"I'll do no such thing." The voice replied, a slight edge of frustration in his voice, "Again, I say, I only want to do business."

"Okay." Lina replied, motioning Gourry to open the door.

"You're letting him in?" Gourry asked skeptically, it didn't seem like either the smart thing to do, or something Lina would do… then he remembered her 'performance' downstairs and thought that maybe this was the real Lina poking out.

"Just try to look threatening…" Lina said as she sat on the bed preparing a spell, just in case. "And open the door."

Gourry shook his head and walked over to the door, carefully opening it to reveal… a man in mysterious off-white robes with a hood and mask that covered everything but the eyes. It was in all, a stylish, yet effective method for concealing one's identity.

"Well, there's nothing suspicious about _that_." Lina muttered sarcastically, just a split second before the man in bandages followed him through the door. Gourry of course fell into a ready stance with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Are you friends with Mister Mummy here?" Lina asked the white-robed man… if that's what he was, she had the odd feeling that this guy was a lot more powerful that he looked. Which, even with the robes, would be a short and not-too-muscular form, but he moved with a confidence of body that she'd only seen on the overconfident or the very strong.

"M-mummy Man? " The bandaged man took a step forward to lunge, being interrupted by both the sound of Gourry's sword being quickly drawn and the robed man's hand shooting out to block his advance.

"Stop!" The robed man commanded, presumably just the bandaged man, but Gourry stopped as well when the bandaged man obeyed. The robed figure continued, never taking his eyes off Lina, "His name is Zolf. He is a good servant, if impertinent at times. Please forgive him his… enthusiasm for trying to retrieve the item I am interested in."

"Heh, no problem… I'll just raise the price." Lina said cheerfully, Gourry could almost swear he saw gold coins dancing in front of her eyes… he'd have to be careful about his money, and probably possessions, too.

"Again, a shrewd move." The robed man nodded, "Now then, let us get down to business."

"""You said you wanted something of mine, right?" Lina asked, trying to probe for r some information on what it was, Gourry thought.

"Yes, an item recently acquired from the bandit, the _Dragon Fangs_, to be precise." Was the reply, a bit too vague for Lina's probing to work.

Lina shrugged, time for the direct approach, "And what is this 'item' you want?"

"That I won't say."Came his simple reply.

Lina was stumped… how exactly did someone do business if you didn't know what was to be traded? "Well, I guess that cancels this transaction…"

"Wait." The robed man held out his hand, "If I told you what particular item I wanted, you would overcharge me… or perhaps refuse to part with it out of curiosity. So instead, you will show me all the items you took and give their prices."

"Excuse me!" He'd caught her, she had to admit, and it was a good solution to the trap she was planning… maybe she could apply it to all the items instead, thought. "Well, you _were_ right about that."

"Show me the items you acquired in your raid and name your prices." The man repeated, insisting the continuation of their negotiations. "Then I'll tell you what I want."

"You don't seem to be one of the bandits, so why do you want it?" Lina asked as she got ready to pull out her loot.

"To find that item I have dispatched many servants, but then Zolf found it and infiltrated the bandits, but just as he was about to 'liberate' it…"

"I showed up, right?" Lina broke in almost joyfully.

"Yes, that is correct." The robed man conceded, letting Lina finish the explanation for him.

"Stealing from thieves, that's pretty low." Lina commented.

"Uh, Lina, you did that too…" Gourry broke in to the conversation, completely throwing Lina's train of thought.

"Gourry!" She yelled at him rather indignantly.

"Well, it's true." Gourry replied, making the only defense he could… and taking the wind out of Lina's sails.

"Well, uh, I guess I now know your circumstances…" Lina said, mentally adding 'Or at least what you're willing to tell me of them.' before smiling and withdrawing the cursed knife from earlier. "This _enchanting_ knife…" Lina began, "will only set you back twelve… million."

The robed man went bug-eyed, as did Zolf and Gourry. Twelve million… that was enough to keep Gourry happily fed for a decade or three… without having to worry about work he could devote larger blocks of time to training… start developing those non-lethal forms.

"What? What's with that reaction?" Lina demanded angrily, bringing Gourry out of his thoughts, and the other two as well. "You men have no balls at all! You said I could set the price! It's only a hundred times the street value! Come on, come on! Pay up!"

The robed man scratched his head rather forcefully and responded, "I see, I was expecting you to charge two or three times the street price… but I didn't say it was the knife I was interested in."

Lina deflated slightly, then pulled out the statuette, "For this Orihalcon statuette… thirty million!"

"For that price you could buy a small castle from a prince!" The robed man responded, angry at the high prices.

"A castle?" Lina allowed a split second to daydream about living like a princess in a castle, that would be the life! Lina laughed, "Well, I guess when you think about it the prices are kind of steep, I'll tell you what, for you, I'll cut em in half."

"Just half? Are you joking?" The robed man was now indignant, but he seemed to catch himself, "Well, I suppose that is a generous concession on your part."

Lina nodded, of course it was, I mean who would ever accuse her of being stingy… where she could hear it anyway.

Zolf chose that moment to break in, "You brat, I should teach you to make fools of us!"

"Zolf!"

"Oh yeah?" Lina replied, "It's hardly fair, I mean a third-rate wizard that can't tell the difference between a fireball and a lighting spell!"

"Third-rate wizard?" Zolf bristled, "Wait... that was... A LIGHT SPELL?"

"Ah, Mr. Third-rate figures it out." Lina taunted.

It was then that the robed man pushed Zolf out the door, closing it on yells of 'impertinent brat' and several curses on her lineage.

"There, shall we continue?" The robed man asked, gesturing to Lina. "I don't usually carry millions with me, so… How about 100,000 up front, and the rest to be paid later?"

Lina shook her head, "I don't think so."

"I have one last idea then," The robed man doggedly continued the negotiations, long after most would have given up. "Why don't you join us? In six months time... you can have two... no, three times the price you asked for."

"N-n-ninety million!" Gourry could hardly believe that amount, it would make quite the family fortune.

"I see…" Lina began, "You want it very badly, so it must have one hell of a hidden value! The thing is, I really cant say... that I'd be comfortable hanging out with your type."

"You're not going to get a better deal, I assure you." The robed man said, hoping that she wouldn't reject the idea outright.

"Just call it woman's intuition." Lina said and, leaving no room for debate, she continued with "And this woman's intuition tells her that you're the type I'd sooner die than join up with."

"So, you're breaking negations?" The robed man asked quietly, "That's a pity…"

"Yeah, a shame." Lina sarcastically retorted.

"Then, as promised, I will leave quietly…" The robed man said softly, but with a tone of resolve that made steel look like Jell-O, "But I will take the item from you by force! Tomorrow morning, the moment you step outside this inn, we become mortal enemies!"

The robed man turned around and exited, turning around in the doorway to say something, "Oh, yes… my name is Zelgadiss."

"I'll remember that." Lina said, gesturing for Gourry to close the door. Which he did, with a thunk as it hit his face.

Gourry winced, he hadn't meant to literally close the door _on_ the guy. Lina might not trust him, but Gourry got in impression of a code of honor, after all, he did keep his word about not attacking… but still…

A little later, after Lina shooed him out of her room, Gourry pulled off his boots as he prepared for bed, he still thought that it would have been a better idea to sell the item, get a bit of profit off of it, and be rid of its trouble. But then it was Lina's to do with as she pleased, so it really wasn't his business… except for the 'having mortal enemies' bit. He really didn't want mortal enemies, but it seemed like there was no avoiding this one, he couldn't leave Lina alone to face Zelgadiss alone.

Grunting, he pulled his boots back on and exited his room, standing in his doorway he guarded the hall, and Lina's room, all night. It turned out that it was an uneventful, boring, and tiring watch though.

• • • • • • • • • • •

About two hours before dawn Gourry groggily woke Lina and the two left town under the cover of the pre-dawn darkness. They were several miles outside the town when dawn finally broke, illuminating Gourry's zombie-like face, the sunken, bloodshot eyes in particular gave Lina the creeps.

"Gee Gourry! You sure aren't a morning person, are you?" Lina said laughingly, trying to alleviate her own uneasiness.

Gourry glared balefully in her direction, thinking of a proper response, one that didn't involve clouting her upside the head. Fortunately for him, a farmer going the same direction with a horse-drawn cart chose that moment to kindly offer them a ride.

Gourry tried to keep his mind on what she was saying, something about how either the statuette or the knife could be tracked, the knife with its spell, and the statuette with its magic-resistant materiel. The knife, she declared, must be useless, until Gourry pointed out, mid-yawn, that perhaps it was something like a key to a treasure chest or something.

"It could be Gourry!" Lina exclaimed, "perhaps you're not so dumb after all!"

Then she looked over at Gourry and found him sleeping, twitched twice, and shook him awake for falling asleep while she was talking.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"I can't figure out _why_ they'd be so obsessed with either of them!" Lina said with some aggravation, re starting the dialogue from before.

Gourry sighed and shrugged, he didn't know enough of anything to be of help, one way or the other. Seeing that he was keeping quiet Lina just continued on as they entered the outskirts of a forest.

"One more thing, they'll be waiting to ambush us somewhere." Lina said.

"Yeah, here…" Gourry replied, somewhat cheerfully, now that he'd had a couple of hours of sleep. There were several dark eyes he'd spotted when they'd gone in a ways, not the eyes of animals, but the malicious gazes of monsters ready to lay waste to the two travelers.

A few more seconds and the monsters, berserkers, burst from their concealment, such as it was, and charged. Gourry wasted no time in meeting them and dealt heavy damage to the group in front of him, while he'd seen Lina go for the group on the left.

After slashing through several Berserkers, a tree, another Berserker, a charging boar (spooked by Berserkers), and yet more Berserkers, it looked to Gourry like they'd been fairly well decimated ane took the rest out in short order… if by short order you meant slowly, laboriously, and one-by-one.

Finally though, after dispatching the final Berserker, Gourry made his way to where Lina had been lazing about on the grass covered hillside, enjoying the sun and doing absolutely nothing to help out in their fight.

"Say, Lina, don't you feel bit ashamed about letting others fight your battles for you?" Gourry asked, panting, as he backhanded a Berserker that decided it was well enough to stagger to its feet and try to continue the assault on the two.

"But I did fight…" Lina said, shifting her position, "a little."

Gourry remembered her opening the battle with a few fireballs, but that was about it, she'd dropped off the radar really early in the fight. "Yeah, then you left me with the rest… which wasn't very nice, or sporting, of you."

"Well, you have a point., I guess." Lina shifted a bit more, uncomfortable, probably…

"Well, come on." Gourry said, trying to gather enough strength to continue on their journey. It would, after all, be a bad idea to stop… especially out in the open like they were, Zelgadiss would simply order his men to trap them if he could. "If we don't make it to the next village before nightfall we'll be easy picking for them. So, let's go."

"A little more… it's nice and warm here." Lina protested, obviously she'd found a good napping spot, she continued on for a while about how the spot was very nice.

"Would you cut that out?" Gourry asked, more than a bit angry at his seemingly new fair-weather ally, and grabbed her arm to pick her up.

She winced, not the oh-no-I'm-not-getting-my-way wince, but the oh-crap!-that hurts wince., the doubling over and subsequent shift in her position let him see that there was a wet spot on her red tunic, one that was made with her own blood… she hadn't been just relaxing and taking it easy, she must have been wounded early on… which, in turn, made Gourry feel like an insensitive jerk.

"Lina, are you alright?" Gourry asked with more energy than he felt due to the weight of guilt he now felt.

"I just ate too much before the attack." Lina said trying to put up a front.

"But you're bleeding!" Gourry rebutted, it wasn't eloquent or persuasive except in the concern that showed.

"It's ok… It's that…" Lina wondered what to say, then caught his concerned gaze, which changed what she was going to say, "I'm casting a healing spell, if we wait a while we'll be good as new."

"Lina… we don't have a while." Gourry said earnestly then, much to her dismay, picked her up and started carrying her to the next town.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: 

Alright, I wanted to get to the end of the Rezo encounter, but this looks like a good spot.

Anyway, I suppose I should reply to some of the questions and reviews now, so here goes:

_Zelinko_ - You have Sam's character down good, and he will indeed do something, but only when he can. So, you can count on seeing him in the story (as well as the _other_ leaper), but not really soon.

_TannimMurphy_ – Well, there isn't going to be **too** much deviation for this Arc… though there will definitely be in a later Arcs, right now I'm slowly introducing my SI. In about Arc 2 things'll start spiraling out in different directions. All I have to say about what will happen is: "_Sore wa himetsu desu_". (You can thank Xellos for that one.) Also, he won't really remember much until an evil event I have planned in the future… cackles evilly

_Kyrtythren_ – Quite right in that without the intro it'd seem like a Slayers reiteration, and it would be to an extent, which I'm sure would throw people off when he suddenly jumps into another universe/character.


	8. Chapter 007

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 7 **

Lina didn't make the trip to the next village very easy, but then again, have you ever tried to carry a squirming, yelling, hitting baby several miles? It was a lot like that, except that the 'baby' was a teenager and many times as loud, heavy, and uncooperative.

"Gourry…" Lina growled, after she'd calmed down a bit from all the screaming and wailing protests, but still while they were well short of their destination, "Put me down now… OR I'LL BLAST YOU IN THE HEAD WITH A FIREBALL!"

Several options flashed through Gourry's mind, the foremost being something along the lines of" "DROP THE LITTLE GIRL AND DIVE BEHIND THAT RISE AT THE EDGE OF THE ROAD FOR COVER!" That was an instant did he realized something…

"Hey Lina?" Gourry asked stopping his walk as if to put her down, "Fireballs explode on contact, don't they?"

"Yeah… why?" Lina asked as she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh, nothing…" Gourry said cheerfully as he resumed walking, without putting her down, "except that if you hit me with one at such close range you'd be hitting yourself too."

Lina blinked at him and then began again to scream and kick again.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Ahhhh…" Gourry sighed as he relived himself into his bedpan, he would resume his watch on Lina's door momentarily, just as soon as he finished his business.

Indeed, he'd just finished when an explosion, the kind that were associated with a Fireball spell, rocked the inn. Rushing out into the hall Gourry saw Lina leaning up against her door.

"What? What's going on?" Gourry asked as he rushed to her side.

"Bad guys." Lina replied as smoke began to leak out from the cracks of the door.

"Well… did you get em?" Gourry asked.

"I dunno." Lina replied, making a wiping gesture across her forehead.

"You don't know?" Gourry asked, little disbelievingly, but only because he'd seen the destructive capabilities of Lina's Fireball spell.

"Well, normally, a direct hit from one of my fireballs might melt iron. But..." Lina started to explain, only to be interrupted as a troll burst out of the room, knocking the door flying.

"A troll!" Lina jumped back further from her door, "This is no good!"

Gourry leaped in, sword drawn, to cut the troll's head off… only to be blocked by a slightly singed, short, grey-bearded guy's sword. It was actually an impressive block, so Gourry said as much as he looked deep into the other's eyes trying to look for a sign of weakness.

"You shouldn't underestimate your elders." The older man retorted, pushing back Gourry's blade with a surprising amount of strength and skill. "Because we just might surprise you!"

Gourry had to backpedal a few steps to keep his balance, surprising considering his massive build, but the older man wasn't thin or stringy in build, but more like a dwarf, stocky, and he knew how to use it.

Then the troll recovered and made a lunge at Gourry, forcing him to the far end of the wall… only the troll was deflected and stunned by one of Lina's spells when it crashed head-first into the wall next to Gourry.

"I'll cover you." Lina said, concentrating on some other spell to subdue the other trolls that were getting ready to exit her room.

"Alright, but don't take any chances." Gourry said as he eyed the older man.

"And here I thought you'd be grateful!" Lina said with mock indignation, or at least Gourry hoped it was.

Gourry was about to lunge back into battle when the air seemed to get thick, like molasses or something, and it felt like trying to run underwater. The sensation was also enervating on a truly frightening level, where Gourry had been fairly awake and animate he now felt like he'd been awake and running a marathon for thirty-six hours straight.

"Huh?" Gourry thought he heard Lina say.

"What's going on?" He asked, struggling with a supreme force of will to stay awake.

"It's a mind control spell." Lina explained.

"Did you do it?" Gourry asked lowering his sword and looking at Lina, he struggled to concentrate on her reply, that and to not yawn.

"No way! I mean it's an easy spell and all…" Lina continued, surveying all the trolls that were under as well as the old man, "I could only do two or three, but I have no idea who could do so many at once."

"Late night visitors…" A masculine voice said from the shadows down the hall, "can be such a nuisance, can't they?"

"Who are you?" Lina asked quickly responding to the situation, it was the question Gourry was going to ask, but he couldn't seem to open his mouth quick enough.

With that he stepped out into the light, dim as it was, and revealed himself to be a fairly tall man in what appeared to be his mid thirties wearing some rather ornate red robes and carrying a iron staff with a loop in the top.

"I couldn't help but interfere…" He said as if that explained it.

Gourry struggled with the spell, and desperately tried to say something. "Kinda like you Lina…" Gourry said, finally giving in to the urge to yawn. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the remark earned him a quick, but violent, physical reprimand from Lina.

"Quiet you!" Lina whispered at Gourry, who seemed to be more alert now that she'd backhanded him something good, then she turned back to the man and thanked him rather profusely.

"I assume you put everyone else to sleep too, right?" Lina asked.

"Ah, you could tell?" The man replied, smiling at her and nodding.

"Well, we _were_ making a bit of a ruckus and nobody else came out of their rooms." Lina explained her deduction.

The man shrugged, "It avoids the added nuisance of having to deal with them as well… people that have no connection to this shouldn't be involved." Raising his hand he snapped his fingers and the old man with the sword and his trolls marched out of the inn. "Apparently they were sent by Zelgadiss…"

"You know him, Zelgadiss, I mean?" Lina asked.

"Yes. He is my enemy and he is attempting to resurrect Shabranigdo, the monster king."

"Shabranigdo?" Lina parroted in surprise, "The Dark Lord! Resurrected?"

"Without a doubt." The robed man confirmed, nodding grimly, "Zelgadiss is a mixture of human, golem, and brow demon… a creation of utter evil whose only wish is to revive the Dark Lord, and destroy the world."

"Why would he do something stupid like that?" Lina asked, awed that there was really someone who would destroy the world.

The robed man shook his head slowly back and forth, "That, I still cannot guess. But now he is your enemy as well as mine. I am but a humble priest, but even I cannot overlook such an evil ambition as to revive the Dark Lord."

"Yeah… I guess so, but…" Lina tried to interrupt, but the priest continued.

"Zelgadiss is after a key, _the_ key to the Dark Lord's revival… which fate has placed into your hands. But now he will surround you with enemies to attempt to get it… You can spare yourself these troubles though, why don't you give it to me?"

"The key?" Lina asked, wondering if it was the knife or the statuette.

"Yes, the key." The priest said calmly.

Gourry wasn't entirely out of it during the whole conversation, but something about this priest gave him the creeps. Maybe it was how he never opened his eyes and just stood there with his eyes lightly shut as if about to snap open. Or maybe it was the casual manner he spoke of destroying the world…

"But then you'd have to fight them alone!" Lina protested, "And then they'd know that we'd met and come after me anyway!"

"Do not concern yourself in this. They are formidable enemies, but I, Rezo, should be able to handle them… or I don't deserve the title of 'Red Priest'."

"Rezo?" Lina exclaimed, "I thought it was you! One of the five great Wise Men of this Age! Rezo the Red Priest!"

Goury didn't know what was going on, but he didn't like it, all of a sudden Lina was acting like some rabid fan at a rock concert… what the hell was a rock concert? Gourry scratched his head, there had been an image, but it had faded like a dream after waking.

"Rezo!" Lina shrieked again.

"Well, it is the name most people call me." Rezo smiled at Lina.

"So… is he famous?" Gourry asked, knowing that if the titles were any indication that he was, but he felt that he had to divert Lina's attention… what if that mind-control thing was affecting her now?

Lina turned to him and growled "Any five-year old knows of him! I'll explain later!" then she turned back to Rezo and said, "Great priest, I insist that I retain the key."

"But…" Rezo tried to protest, but Lina continued.

"I can't back out of this! Not after hearing the Dark Lord is being revived!" Lina told the Red Priest.

"As it is they don't know we've made contact yet, if we keep the key they'll attack us again. When that happens, you can sweep in to help us defeat them."

"That will be dangerous!"" Rezo protested, "I should be the decoy."

"Please, Great Priest!" Lina demanded, "You _must_ trust me!"

Rezo nodded once, "I understand." then he walked over to the doorway to Lina's room and chanted a spell, softly so that it would be difficult for even someone who was close, like Lina, to overhear and copy it.

"What are you…" Lina began, only to let it drop and watch a master spellsmith at work, this had to be one of his original spells! Lina felt almost giddy at the prospect of watching him preform a spell.

There was a flash of light and then Rezo turned to face Lina and Gourry once more. "From tomorrow on I will support you from the shadows behind the scenes… until next time."

Then, anti-climatically, he walked off into the shadows of the hallway again.

"So, what'd he do?" Gourry asked as he looked into Lina's room, he was feeling much better now. "Nothing's changed."

"What?" Lina ran up and pushed Gourry out of her way and looked around her room… it was immaculate. "Wow! He's good."

"Why do you say that?" Gourry asked.

"This was the room I threw my fireball into." Lina replied.

"And?" Gourry asked, careful to keep any understanding out of his voice, he rather liked teasing her… when it wasn't too painful, that is.

"Never mind." Lina said, walking out of the room, "Now go to your room, it's still night and we can get a few hours of sleep."

"Hey, where are you going?" Gourry asked as she opened the door to his room and went in.

"To bed." Came the tired reply.

"But that's my room!" Gourry informed her.

"They'll probably try to attack my room again, right?" Lina asked as she started to lay down next to the bed.

"Yeah… well, at least take the bed." Gourry said loosening his sword-belt. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"But I don't want to be a bother." Lina said in the middle of a yawn.

"Right." Gourry said as he left the room, closing the door gently, and resuming his guard duties.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Once the morning had arrived Gourry descended the stairs to the dining room to order breakfast, for both Lina and himself. It had just arrived when, looking like someone who'd slept on a rough wooden floor, Lina came down and sat at his table yawning.

Gourry looked up at her, grabbed the plate that he really wanted before she could, and asked "So, tell me about this Rizo character and that Shabu-whatsit, will you?"

"Rezo," Lina automatically corrected, grabbing some food as she started explaining, "and he's not 'some character', he's Rezo the Red Priest. He's a man of the cloth, and he carries the respect of all the great shrines and temples, who travels the lands helping and healing people. One of the Five Wise Men of this Age. However, unlike all the others, he's been blind since birth… in fact, the only thing that's bad about him is his name once belonged to a villain."

"Oh, okay.. So he goes around and helps people. What's that got to do with that Shabby-Durango guy."

Lina twitched in spite of herself. "Shabranigdo! And he's not a guy, he's a monster, the king of monsters!"

"I thought that the King of Monsters was Godzillia…" Gourry interrupted, what the heck did a giant lizard-monster have to do with any of this? Gourry wondered about that to himself and rubbed his chin in thought until Lina's punch brought him back to reality.

"That's for not taking this seriously!" Lina screamed at him.

"But I was… I think." Gourry complained, rubbing the sore spot.

"Anyway, back to Shabranigdo, the king of monsters." Lina started to explain again, then paused to grab a chicken that Gourry was going for, "Called 'Ruby-Eye' by some because of his bright red eyes, he is the lord of all the monsters on Earth…" Lina looked over at Gourry and sighed, "I think I'll start a the beginning."

"That's a good place!" Gourry said as he happily ate some bread rolls.

Lina glared at him, then continued, "Do you think you could listen to an old story?" Lina asked.

"Sure, sure…" Gourry nodded enthusiastically, though Lina had to wonder if that was because the waitress had just brought another plate of food, several bowls of soup or stew that didn't appeal to Lina all that much.

"Anyway, Gourry…" Lina tried to get his attention, rather unsuccessfully, it seemed that she was no match for the interesting powers of the Soup of The Day special. 'Ah, why bother, he's not listening anyway!' Lina thought dejectedly.

"Go on, I'm listening." Gourry cut off her train of thought.

"According to legend, long, long ago, the world we live on was thrust onto a great staff. The world exists on top of it, smooth and round… like this egg on my fork." Lina stabbed one of her fried eggs and lifted it up with her fork to illustrate her point, "Around the edge of the world two groups fought, waging their ancient battle, one was the race of monsters, and the other the race of dragons. Demons and gods, you might say. But leading them were Shabranigdo, the dark lord, and Ceiphied, the dragon god."

"That war raged on for hundreds, thousands, of years… until Ceiphied was able to split Shabranigdo into seven parts, which he then sealed here on this world."

"So, Ceiphied beat him?" Gourry asked, I mean it is kind of difficult to stay alive after being cut into seven pieces.

Lina shook her head, "No, Shabranigdo was only imprisoned."

"But you said he was split into seven pieces." Gourry emphasized his point by making several slashing motions with his butter knife, then thought better of it and tossed an apple in the air and cut it into seven pieces to demonstrate, and then eat.

"That doesn't matter… to a monster at least." Lina replied, "Although Ceiphied imprisoned him, it took all of his strength to do it…"

"Uh-huh." Gourry nodded, indicating through a mouthful of apple that he wanted to know what happened next.

"Well, a thousand years ago, one of the seven pieces of Shabranigdo was reborn." Lina continued the tale, "Fortunately one piece remained of Ceiphied, and defeated it with the help of the Water Dragon king, where it was then sealed deep within the Earth itself."

"What a meaningless battle." Gourry commented, sighing at the story. It was, of course, because neither side won, or even _could_ win from the sounds of it.

"Well, the powers of the two beings competes savagely, and the balance of peace in this world was broken, which, in turn, gave rise to the monsters that began appearing in this world. Understand?"

Gourry looked idly at his plate and rubbed his chin, sure he understood the story… but there were many things he didn't understand. Why did the interruption of the balance of power bring monsters into existence? How did they appear? Why had they been fighting in the first place? Could either side win? Perhaps if one of the seven pieces of Shabranigdo was revived, but could the other side win _even if_ they were never revived? "Nope, I'm afraid I don't understand it at all."

"Why am I _not_ surprised?" Lina groaned to herself.

"But, I do know that Shaba… Shabi… Shabe… What's-his-name, is the head bad guy." Gourry nodded.

"Well, understanding that _is_ pretty impressive for you!" Lina sniped in a low blow.

"Ow!" Gourry clutched his chest as if grabbing at an imaginary arrow and fell of his chair in mock pain.

'Well, Shabranigdo, the dark lord…' Lina thought to herself, 'I have no idea of the true extent of his powers, but they must be huge… I'd bet anything that he'll be nothing but trouble.'

Lina was brought out of her reverie by a movement, specifically the movement of Gourry taking one of her sausages. "That's my sausage!"

"Well, you were staring into space… so, obviously you didn't want it!" Gourry said, as he savored the spicy sausage flavor.

"But I did!" Lina yelled angrily as she stood up, leaned over the table, and began to shovel sausages off of Gourry's plate straight into her mouth.

"Hey! I only took one!" Gourry yelled.

"Tough!" Lina yelled back, 'accidentally' spitting sausage bits onto a chunk of bread on his plate, "Oops, got to eat that too!" She said as she snatched it before Gourry could move.

"Hey! Cut it out!" Gourry to stop her from getting any more of his breakfast.

"Well, you shouldn't ever steal someone else's food!" Lina yelled as she sat down, ripping the bread into bite size pieces and using them to mop up some gravy off her plate. "I was just teaching you a lesson."

"Right… you've always got an angle, don't you." Gourry muttered and went back to what remained of his breakfast, maybe he could recoup some of his losses at lunch time…

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

Well, here we are, I didn't get to make Rezo as creepy as I wanted, but oh well. I hope you enjoyed it, because I hope to breeze past the rest of this arc in a couple of chapters. Like three, but don't hold me to it! Please review if you liked it (or even if you didn't). Thanks.


	9. Chapter 008

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 8 **

The next day, around midmorning, Gourry walked along the path with Lina as he half-listened to her complain about the scenery, or rather the lack thereof. It was something along the lines of "Trees, trees, trees! I'm sick of _trees_!", and it showed that, without a doubt, Lina couldn't see the forest for all the trees.

Gourry smiled at that little joke but decided to say nothing, either positive or negative, to Lina. A sort of 'wait it out' policy that seemed to be working.

"Gourry! I'm bored with all these trees!" Lina positively whined, "Isn't there a better, more interesting way to Atlas City?"

Well, it _had_ been working until she'd actually asked a question. Gourry sighed as he turned to her and said, "I'm afraid not, the quickest way to Atlas is through these woods."

"The dreaded Boring Woods…" Lina mumbled, "Where travelers die of boredom and bandits before they can rob them… Hey, Gourry?" Lina asked, the question completely different in tone than the rest of her whining.

Gourry stopped, unsure what was happening with the change in her attitude. "What?"

"Remember when I said that I thought those guys would attack again?" Lina said, again changing her posturing and giving Gourry the impression that she was either speaking tangentially… or with more candor than she was used to.

"Yeah." Gourry replied, prompting her to go on.

"Um, look, I'm not going to have my powers for a few days." Lina said, almost timidly, and began blushing. "So, uh, I won't be sticking close to you if we get into a fight."

Gourry blinked, that was it? He wondered if maybe it had to do with the moon, which was a day from full… wasn't the moon important in magic? It was to sailors, which he remembered in a bar. Gourry shrugged, "Okay… I can handle it."

There was a moment of awkwardness, which Gourry finally broke, "Um, Lina, are you sure you can't you use your powers?"

"Look." Lina said, pointing to Gourry than toward a small tree, she chanted a spell. Gourry didn't know, but then when she snapped her fingers he expected to find out, it was probably something overly flashy…

And nothing happened.

"See?" Lina asked.

"So… you've completely lost your powers?" Gourry asked semi-rhetorically, he'd been expecting something big, like fire and brimstone, or _something_

Lina looked sad for a moment, then nodded, "I don't think I'll be able to cast anything more complex than a light-spell for the next two or three days."

Gourry nodded solemnly, "I see, I see… so… does this sort of thing happen often?"

Lina glared at him, "Every month…" she growled.

"Ah, then it's the monthlies." Gourry declared, nodding happily as if he'd just solved one of the great mysteries of the universe, or at least something that had been on his mind, and come up with a witty and amusing answer.

Lina was not amused. "And what does someone like you, with the brains of a jellyfish and the brawn of a troll, know about monthlies?"

"Don't you mean with the brains of a troll and the brawn of a jellyfish?" Gourry asked teasing her a little more. "And you _did_ say it happened every month, so that makes it monthly."

Lina couldn't fault the logic… but she wasn't running on logic, she was running on emotion, and as such she was really irritated with Gourry. Brusquely she turned away from her companion and continued along the road.

• • • • • • • • • • •

The plus side, Gourry thought, of their little chat was that Lina wasn't grumbling about how boring the woods were, the bad side, however, was that she wasn't too pleased with him, and he felt like she was just waiting for her powers to return so she could blast him.

Gourry pulled himself out of his thoughts upon seeing Zelgadiss standing on the road before him, he wasn't too surprised as he'd felt eyes on him fot the past half-mile. Gourry threw up his hand and blocked Lina's forward progress as he proceeded to stare at the man in the road… it he was a man. It was the first time that Gourry had actually seen Zelgadiss's face, which was… interesting. The man had a strangely elfin shaped face, a light blue color, but the texture of the flesh was… _wrong_. Perhaps Rezo had been telling the truth, Gourry didn't know, and right now he didn't care, what was foremost on his mind was protecting Lina from any physical harm.

"You've decide to quit toying with us and show yourself…" Gourry said to the chimera, "Eh, Zegaldis?"

"Um, isn't his name Zeidigas?" Lina whispered, rather loudly, to Gourry.

"Is it?" Gourry asked turning to look at Lina, "I could have sworn that it was something like Zegaldis…"

The chimera twitched, then said in forced tones, "My. Name. Is _Zelgadiss_!"

"Oh, what he said." Lina remarked, pointing at Zelgadiss.

"Oh, ok." Gourry replied, nodding a he absorbed the information. Strange guy, off-white clothes, Zelgadiss.

"Enough of this!" Zelgadiss shouted, "I want that item! You can give it to me, or…" Zelgadiss readied his sword in it's sheath, "If you object, I will take it by force. Which would you prefer? Choose now."

"I'd think carefully before answering." A rough voice said from behind them, yet off the road on the other side.

Gourry looked and spotted some sort of wolf-man… though the fur was green and brown, well blended to the colors of this forest, which is why it was difficult to spot him leaning up against a tree.

"Probably a werewolf…" Lina commented, though Gourry didn't know if she was informing him or just thinking aloud. "Looks like you've got wolf _and_ troll blood in you."

"Heh heh heh." the wolfman chuckled as he walked past them to Zelgadiss, nodding to Lina as he passed, "You have sharp eyes kid…" staying on the far side of the road and making no sudden moves.

Lina mumbled something, probably a curse on his ancestry, and then she retorted, "I'm not even going to ask about that ridiculous leather armor." Lina pointed to the brown and green leather the wolfman wore, reminiscent of a tank-top.

"So," The wolfman growled as he took his place at Zelgadiss's side, "All we hafta do is get that Orihalcon statue from her… right master Zelgadiss?"

"Dilgear!" The chimera scolded the wolfman for letting on to which item he wanted, then sighed. Well, the two would have known anyway when they'd taken them… if he had the goodwill to leave them their lives.

"Oh, right, you said not to tell them anything… sorry." The wolfman apologized rather sheepishly, which was rather funny because he _was_ a wolfman.

Zelgadiss didn't say anything to his minion, who just nodded and continued his apology. "But it doesn't matter because they both die here!"

"Ha! You're one to talk!" Lina said defiantly, "I don't know how tough you are exactly… but you don't want to get on my bad side."

"Oh, yeah, I see you've got spunk, Little Lady." Dilgear said in a way that was either appreciatively amused or irritated by her lack of courtesy in not being frightened or intimidated by him. "Let's see what you got."

"Alright," Lina countered confidently, "but you're not going to like it. Especially after I win… I'll even take you both on, myself!"

The two inhuman monsters, a chimera and a wolfman, blinked at her. 'Spunk' didn't cover it… insanity might though.

Lina took a big breath and loosened up her arms as if about to cast a long spell, and then suddenly thrust her finger at Zelgadiss, pointing at the chimera and his henchman.

"**Go get em Gourry!**" she yelled.

All three of the others, Gourry included, did a double-take at the girl. That was certainly… unexpected.

"Now hold on here!" Gourry protested, sure he wanted to keep Lina safe, but it would be two-to-one odds, against beings whose powers, abilities, and skills he hadn't a clue about. He might be a good swordsman, but they might be better, or maybe they could spit fireballs from their mouth like the dragon could. It wasn't a situation that Gourry wanted to be in.

"Hold it you two!" another voice said, old and gravely, yet still strong and forceful. "You've nothing to worry about… _I'm_ here now."

Gourry looked at the man who was gripping a halberd, one who he recognized from the fight that 'Rezo' had intervened with. The words sounded like they could be a reassurance, considering Lina had said it was a mind-control spell, but something didn't quite add up… it was the way he moved so he was standing in line alongside Zelgadiss facing them.

"The guy from last night…" Lina said, staring at him, then she pushed Gourry into action, "Three against one isn't fair!"

"I don't know what you did to me last night…" the old man said with a set determination, "but today's gonna be different."

"Are you ready yet?" Zelgadiss asked, though Gourry wasn't sure if he was talking to his compatriots or to him.

Nobody answered, not the wolfman, not the old man, not Gourry, and not Lina.

Zelgadiss snorted and nodded before saying, "Let's go then… Flare Arrow!" he yelled the spell out as he opened the sortie.

Gourry and Lina dodged to opposite sides of the magical attack, rolling to their feet as Dilgear and the old man rushed them.

Gourry met the rush with speedy bound that they weren't expecting, cutting through the haft of the old man's halberd as he bounded past. He'd meant to try for a penetrating blow to the gut, but the angle where his sword met was wrong and it didn't do any damage save adding another scratch to the armor that had obviously been used before.

Gourry shot a leg out and absorbed his forward momentum, after having gotten behind their charge on that last attack, and whirled about while springing, sword first, into Dilgear's back.

It would have worked if Dilgear had been a moment slower in swinging around to block the strike, but having blocked it he absorbed an impressive amount of the force with his obviously effective upper-body strength.

Having engaged only Dilgear and the old man, Gourry knew that Lina and Zelgadiss would be facing off. Especially if she didn't try to escape, and with her current state that might be the best answer… Gourry didn't have time to worry now though, all he could do now was to stay alive and try to defeat these two.

Gourry blocked a swing of Dilgear's sword, but the wolfman pushed in trying to force Gourry over. It was actually pretty impressive as Gourry was bigger, both in height and muscle-mass, than virtually everyone he'd met.

While he was locked in place by Dilgear, the old man attacked from the side, Gourry's left, with a sword he'd had found somewhere to replace the halberd. It was then that the old man made a mistake, he was a bit too eager to repay Gourry for the damage he'd done to the halberd and rushed in at the end.

Gourry let the resistance against Dilgear drop to nothing, keeping his sword locked with the wolfman's blade, and fell backward, dropping Dilgear right into the old man's way.

Losing one's balance in a fight is a good way to get knocked on your ass, both literally and figuratively. However, Gourry was gambling on tripping everyone up and hoping that he could get to his feet quick enough to gain the upper hand.

Scrambling to his feet, he found that he wasn't quite quick enough to get a decisive advantage, but his little maneuver had caused Dilgear's companion to cut the wolfman's side deeply leaving a gash that was bleeding profusely.

'One to one odds, that's better.' Gourry thought as he readied himself to meet the old man who, almost instantly, had calmed down considerably. He wasn't going to be able to get him to attack recklessly again, Gourry knew.

The two suddenly moved, simultaneously, into their attacks against the other. Attack were redirected and returned, only to be blocked. Gourry and the old man, each quite skilled, each trying to get an opening.

Then, at last, Gourry saw it! And he started his swing to the opening, only to change it into a deflection of Dilgear's attack, which he saw out of the corner of his eye at the last moment.

The wolfman was up. Not dead or out of commission like Gourry had hoped. This made his odds of winning this fight extremely small. Not that the two-to-one odds had been all that great to begin with.

"You're pretty good, to be holding us both off!" The old man said, stepping behind Dilgear to catch his breath.

Gourry hadn't noticed how winded the older man had become, but that was probably because he was getting winded himself. He honestly didn't know how long he'd been fighting them. It felt, mentally, like only mere minuted, but physically he was beginning to ache like only hours of practicing would do.

"Thanks a lot!" Gourry said cheerfully as he could, trying to regulate his breathing and not become fully out of breath.

Dilgear laughed, not an unpleasing laugh either, but one with some real appreciation in it. "Look, we're just after the girl. Stay out of our way and you won't get hurt."

Gourry made a derisive sound and stepped back tying to keep the old man and Dilgear from getting in a good position to attack from. It was getting difficult to keep the two from getting to both sides of him.

"Right now our leader, Zelgadiss, is probably…" Dilgear continued, finishing the sentence by pulling his thumb across his neck and making a sound like _krrrsshhhht_.

"Lina…" Gourry said, hoping that she had gotten away to safety and had not, indeed, been taken care of like a snared rabbit.

'Damnit! I'm not going to be able to take these two much longer…' Gourry thought, 'I can make one final attack, through them both, pushing past them and then trying to retreat successfully… I wish the plan was better than _this_.'

Just as Gourry fell into position, ready to make a break for it, the sky lit up with some sort of powerfully bright magical light. A signal, Gourry thought instantly, one of three possibilities crossed his mind: one, Lina had been captured or killed and thus they needn't engage him anymore, two, Lina had gotten away and so they needn't fight anymore… or three, Lina was holed up somewhere that her pursuer couldn't get to and he was calling for reinforcements.

"Looks like he did it…" Dilgear said, confirming that it was a signal for them… and significantly dropping the odds that Lina had gotten away. "We don't have to worry about this guy anymore… come on Rodimus, let's go."

The old man, Rodimus, nodded in agreement. "You really did quite well, holding us both off like that… Get going, and forget about this, before we're ordered to kill you."

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gourry wondered into the town, not lost because he knew where he was, having passed through the small town awhile back. He felt almost like a big-brother to Lina… and he really hadn't kept her safe. Sure, he'd done the best he could, but if she had been seriously hurt…

Gourry shook his head and resolved to try to think positively. If she'd escaped then she would meet him somewhere in this town, that was the plan. Reaching down into a crevice of his armor Gourry retrieved the small Orihalcon statuette and dagger and looked at them. So much trouble for such small items, was it really worth the time and energy these guys under Zelgadiss spent… was it worth the lives that had been or would be lost?

Looking around the town square Gourry was surprised to see Lina, what incredible luck!

Gourry ran up and turned the girl around, intent on finding out if she was ok, then found himself face to face with a redheaded girl in glasses that definitely wasn't Lina.

"Oh, um, sorry… I t-thought y-you were someone e-else…" Gourry stammered an apology as best he could, feeling embarrassment at the mistake.

"What do you think you're doing?" The redhead demanded angrily.

"Looking for someone…" Gourry replied lamely with an audible gulp. This wasn't helping the embarrassment, but the attitude and hair matched.

"Well, you should be sure before touching someone!" The girl hauled back and slapped Gourry with enough force to send him to the ground. It wasn't all bad though, because it _did_ clear out his sinuses.

After picking himself off the ground, and wondering around town looking for Lina, Gourry decided to try the places she'd probably go, the restaurants and inns… fortunately is was a small town and only had one inn, and it's one restaurant was also the bar.

'Fifty/fifty chance… I suppose I'll go to the bar first.' Gourry thought, 'If I don't find her there I can check the inn and, if worst comes to worst and she's not there, I can bed down for the night and resume searching for her tomorrow.'

With that decided Gourry made his way down the street and entered the bar, upon entering he looked around and… didn't see her. 'Hm, well, maybe the barkeep has seen her.' Gourry thought to himself before heading over to the bar.

"Bartender, get me a Sam Adams." Gourry said pulling a piece of paper out and attempting to draw a picture of Lina that he could use to make asking about her easier.

Gourry detailed the picture as best as he could, but it was still lacking, even to his own discerning eye. Fine art it was not, but reasonable facsimile… _maybe_.

'Ultra petite body? Check! Big eyes? Check! And finally, fiery temper and a trail of destruction? Check!' Gourry nodded to himself, it was exactly as Lina would describe herself - except for the temper and destruction - and it would have to do.

"Hey, barkeep!" Gourry called the bartender over and indicated his drawing of Lina, "Have you seen this girl around?"

"Nope, sure haven't…" The barkeeper sighed, "Look buddy, I don't think anyone in this here town associates with monsters."

"Monsters?" Gourry asked… wondering how the guy had gotten that out of the picture he'd handed over.

The barkeep shrugged, "What else would you call something that breaths fire and leaves destruction of this magnitude behind? What's with the body anyway?"

"Oh, that's just her temper…" Gourry said pointing to the fire-breath and destruction, next he pointed to a misshapen stick-figure with disturbingly large eyes, "And that's supposed to be a short, skinny, foul tempered, little redheaded girl."

"Oh!" The barkeep said, recognizing things now that they were pointed out. "Like I said, nobody around here would know Lina Inverse."

Gourry nodded and was about to get up and try the inn, having finished his beer, then turned to the barkeep asked, "I thought you said that nobody in this town knew _monsters_."

"Eh, same difference…" The barkeeper shrugged, "Potāto, potăto."

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gourry stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep because of the guilty feeling of leaving Lina to her captors overnight, and while he knew intellectually that he'd have a better chance to rescue her after sleeping he just couldn't reconcile it with his conscience.

Gourry sat up and growled to himself, it was stupid… but he wasn't going to be able to sleep without making a better search effort.

He hopped out of bed, pulled his boots on and pulled his boots, and quickly packed his travel pack. Then he quietly made his way out the inn and into the forest. It was too bad he'd already payed for the night's lodging, but oh well.

Several hours of travel led Gourry to the place he sought, the place Lina had bolted from and he'd fought Rodimus and Dilgear, he was fairly sure that he was there anyway. He could make out some smashed grass alongside the road by the full moon's light. Then he saw it, the haft of the halberd that Rodimus had discarded, so he was indeed where he wanted to be.

Sadly Gourry's tracking skills were quite poor, almost nonexistent, but still Gourry tried to find some clue as to where Lina may have gone. That was how he'd become fairly lost, not in the sense of where he was, but where he was going.

After hours of wondering, when the moon had finally set, Gourry gave up his search. He wasn't going to be able to find her trail in the dark, and he might not find it in broad daylight.

Now that he had searched for Lina his conscience wouldn't bother him if he tried to sleep. So, he _tried_ to sleep. It wasn't a very restful sleep but when he did get up, maybe an hour and a half after dawn, he felt marginally refreshed.

A quick fire, which had been even quicker with Lina around, and a rushed breakfast and Gourry was ready to start his search yet again.

"Where could she be?" Gourry asked himself, following what appeared to be a game trail that ultimately led nowhere. Gourry sighed, it was time to face the facts. Lina had been captured or killed, and when they didn't find what they were looking for they'd probably kill her… so by all probability, Lina was dead. Sure there was some small hope that Lina had gotten away, but not much, not much at all.

There was only one thing to do, and that was head to Atlas City and inform her family of Lina's death. He didn't want to do it, he told himself he had to, but he really didn't want to do it… but Lina's family had a right to know.

Atlas City was, as he reckoned it, only a day and a half away once he hit the main road. Add in another day and a half to try to find Lina's family, assuming that it'd be fairly difficult to find them, and in three days he was on his own again.

"Yeah, that's great…" Gourry said quietly to himself, "Alone again."

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gourry was feeling a bit down. Being the guy delivering the bad news, he figured, wouldn't be a fun job for anyone. Being upset as he was about delivering the news he decided to stop at the ghost-town about four hours from Atlas City.

Upon entering the city Gourry noticed something that was a bit out of place in a ghost town, activity, and that activity was in the form of a battle. Most of it seemed to be concentrated off to his right, so he headed left. Joining a battle needlessly would be very foolish, and if he was killed, collateral damage, then the Inverse family would never know what happened to Lina.

Walking quickly down several side-streets Gourry found himself getting close to the edge of the city when he sat something that made him do a double-take: Lina!

Gourry couldn't believe it! Lina was alive! But looking at the situation he saw that she was under attack by a being that he'd never seen before. Not a berserker, troll, or any other beast-man, and the way it re-formed its body at will… it must be a monster. Sure, it looked kinda like an old man, but the way it was swinging a flaming tentacle around… no mistake there.

It was then that Gourry saw the monster send a volley of glowing spine-things toward Lina. The small sorceress hadn't a chance of dodging but…

Gourry leaped out of the alleyway, drawing his sword and deflecting the spines before they could kill the little girl.

"It seems we meet again Lina Inverse…" Gourry said, bringing his sword into a ready position as the spines clattered to the ground.

"Gourry?" Lina said in disbelief. She'd probably never imagined that he'd be around to step to her defense like that… heck, he didn't believe it either.

"So, you have another ally here?" The monster asked rhetorically.

"Not an ally." Gourry said with a shake of his head, "For the moment, I am her guardian."

"What? Who's a guardian?" Lina squawked from behind Gourry, but he paid it no mind, focusing all his attention on the monster.

"Her guardian?" The monster laughed, "Then let me ask the girl one thing."

"Sure." Gourry said, never taking his eyes off the monster and ready to attack at the slightest motion from the monster. Gourry recalled what the book had said about monsters, and how to kill them using his Sword of Light.

"You know where the Philosopher's Stone is, don't you?" The monster said it in a slimy way, something that you didn't want to answer because you knew it was a trap.

"Philosopher's Stone?" Gourry parroted, he was completely unfamiliar with that, whatever it was, as he spoke he reached in his armor and pulled out two objects and tossed them on the ground. "What's that? I thought that you guys were after the statue or knife here… Right?"

"Don't show it to him!" Lina yelled as she hit him in the back of the head, "The stone's hidden in there!"

Gourry growled, there went his plan to cut off the thing's tentacle and use the Sword of Light to finish it off while it was reforming its physical body. "And how was I supposed to know that?"

"So, there it is." The monster chuckled, "Then you two are of no use to me… and you shall die!"

"Don't be silly!" Gourry said in a confident tone he didn't feel, though if he could hold off the old-man monster for just long enough… "We can't have people dying when it's not their turn, right?"

Gourry raised his sword ready to strike, but before he could Lina was pulling on his hair telling him to wait. "Huh, what is it Lina? Can't you see I'm in the middle of a fight?"

"Gourry, just listen, ok?" Lina said as she released his hair, "RUN FOR IT!" and grabbed his wrist and pulled him along at a rate that surprised Gourry.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Gourry demanded as he was being pulled along by the smaller girl.

"Shut up and run, idiot! RUN!" Was Lina's reply.

The monster smiled and stood still, "By all means, run… it just makes it that much more fun."

Minutes later Gourry and Lina sat panting in a stable. It was definitely not a smell you enjoyed, a stable abandoned for ten years, with the dead horses in the stalls and manure… on second thought, maybe this was used by bandits or something, some of the hay and manure looked fairly fresh.

"Oh God, the smell…" Gourry sure didn't like it… it made him want to empty his stomach, even though his stomach was already empty. "Why did you drag us here?"

"Well, you were going to fight him, right?" Lina asked.

"Yeah, so…" Gourry admitted, wondering what her point was.

"Listen, that guy's a monster, a _purebred_ monster." Lina explained. "You can't even scratch him with that sword… Understand?"

"Really?" Gourry eyed his sword, it was a good blade, and the book had said that they needed some time to reform their bodies after a wound. True, he didn't know how much damage the 'wound' was, and he didn't know how much time they needed. Maybe the book was vague on purpose and it had something to do with that 'purebred' stuff Lina mentioned.

"Don't just say 'Really?', Gourry!" Lina growled, "A pure monster like that has a spirit-body, like… a high density ghost or something. You just can't beat someone like that with ordinary magic or melee weapons."

Lina sighed, that had probably gone over his head, "All that means is you can't touch him with your sword, got that?"

Gourry nodded, he got what she was saying, or tying to say. "But why would they send someone like that to get the statuette or knife?"

"It's the statue." Lina said, looking down at it, she had picked it up before pulling Gourry off that massacre-waiting-to-happen of a fight.

"For crying out loud! It's because the Philosopher's Stone is hidden inside it and they want to be sure that they get it!" Lina yelled loud enough to interrupt a calvary charge. "And before you ask the Philosopher's Stone is a fragment of the Staff of the Gods that holds the world up and it works like a super amplifier for magic! Anyone who could use magic could use it to take over the world or something!"

"Okay, Lina, okay!" Gourry said backing away from her, "I think I understand one thing."

"What_is_that?" Lina asked through grated teeth.

"That yelling like that is only going to reveal our hiding place." Gourry pointed out.

"Oh. Right." Lina looked at her feet sheepishly.

"Boo!" The monster said as it ducked in from the front.

"Gah!" Was Lina's reply as she ran out the back, followed closely by Gourry.

"You know, you might be good at skipping rope… but you're lousy at hide-and-seek." The monster said as it followed them into the open area behind the stable, "I am glad for one thing, and that is that the first thing Master Rezo will see when he gains his sight will be your corpses."

And with that the monster sent two fireballs flying at them, and as Gourry dodged he yelled for Lina to distract the monster for a minute.

"Distract him?" Lina said after bounding up to a rooftop and away from where the monster could easily throw a fireball.

"YES!" Gourry excitedly yelled as he dodged another fireball, this one scorching his left sleeve.

"You don't listen to anybody, do you?" Lina muttered as she prepared to distract the damn monster. She let loose one of her attack spells, "FLARE ARROW!"

Reaching in a pouch Gourry pilled out his pin and quickly undid the latch that kept the blade attached to the hilt while the monster absorbed Lina's attacks.

"Heh. The girl can cast spells with no small skill it seems, but I think I'm through playing around." The monster said, glares forming in its five eyes and a dark mist blurred its form until it was no longer human in shape, but something like a spider monster.

"Forgive the delay." The monster said, then proceeded to launch snake-like fires from its palms.

Again Gourry and Lina dodged, both in opposite directions, and both found dome sort of cover for the moment.

"Lina, I'm going in!" Gourry said, whatever Lina was talking about back there, he bet that the Sword of Light wasn't going to 'not leave a scratch'.

"What? Don't you understand, that won't work!"

"Shut up and watch!" Gourry said rolling out from behind his rock and standing up. "Hey monster, before things get out of hand I have something to show you."

"What?" The monster asked, not weary in the slightest, after all it was a single swordsman…

"Look at this!" Gourry held up his pin for the monster to see.

"You don't think I can be defeated by a _needle_, do you?" the monster said indignantly, then wondered _what_ was going on inside this one's head. "Feel free to explain yourself."

"Oh, well, I surely couldn't beat you with a needle… and this isn't a needle." Gourry replied.

"So, there is some reasoning in you after all… what are you going to do?"

"Well, this…"Gourry brought his pin down to the blade, where it met the hilt, and popped the blade loose, having already unlatched it. Then he held the bladeless hilt up for the monster to examine, "See?"

"Do you understand yet?" Gourry asked the monster with a big smile.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Lina shrieked from behind her pile of crates.

"Boy…" The monster growled in annoyance, partly because it _didn't_ understand, and partly because there wasn't much fear coming from this one… "I don't understand a single thing you've said or done… all I see is a fool who's about to burn."

Gourry leapt into action swinging the hilt yelling "Light, come forth!"

Lina both Lina and the monster were shocked to see a blade of light spring from the hilt of the sword, and with no weight on the sword Gourry's speed was at least three times what it was before. The monster didn't have enough time to launch its fireballs before the glowing blade cut him in two.

There was a bright flare of light as the spirit that was generating the physical body was torn to shreds by the mystical weapon

Gourry heaved a sigh of relief, he hadn't been sure the monster would let him get in striking range. But he _knew_ that the weapon, would do the job… or at least he had a good idea that it would from the book. He would definitely have to reread its sections on the Sword of Light and monsters again tonight.

"The Sword of Light… legendary sword that killed the great beast Zanaffar with one stroke…" Lina was saying to herself, still in shock it seemed… she shook her head and ran over to Gourry.

"Gourry!"Lina said with the most disgustingly cute smile that she could manage.

"Lina." Gourry said, turning around and looking at her after taking care of his sword.

"Gourry…" Lina said again, followed by an excited yell of, "Give me that sword!"

"What? How about saying 'thank you' or something?" Gourry asked.

"I can thank you later! Just give me the sword now!" Lina said, making a dive for the sword that Gourry dodged, "C'mon, don't hold out! I'll give you five-hundred silver pieces for it!"

"Five hundred?" Gourry questioned, obviously from Lina's reaction the sword was valuable, "That's only enough for a regular sword… what kind of idiot would sell the Sword of Light for that little?" Gourry asked, reversing the tables on Lina and, grinning to himself.

Lina's jaw dropped… apparently she thought he was that kind of an idiot.

"First of all," Gourry said folding his arms, "it's a family treasure, so I won't sell it for any price."

"So, so, so… give it to me and it'll be _my_ family treasure, right?" Lina asked, pleading with her rescuer to hand over his prized heirloom. "Give me the sword, come on! Gourry! Please? Pretty please?"

"Lina…" Gourry said dryly, "What about 'no' do you not understand?"

Just then, when it looked like it could have been a peaceful evening, minus Lina's nagging, a familiar voice called out, "Well, it seems you made it through okay."

Gourry looked up to see Zelgadiss standing at the edge of a ruined house with his sorcerer, Zolf, and the old man, Rodimus, at his side.

"Zelgadiss!" Instantly Gourry's hand went to his hilt.

"Gourry, wait!" Lina cried jumping in front of him, "Zelgadiss is on our side now."

"He is?" Gourry asked in disbelief.

"I'll explain it later!" Lina said in her usual manner, hopefully she would stay that way and forget about nagging for his sword. "Just give me the sword, ok?"

Gourry sighed, so much for the hope of Lina forgetting about it… The thought crossed Gourry's mind, briefly, that he should sleep with his sword in his sleeping roll… definitely.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: 

Yay, the Sword of Light! But will Lina quit nagging him about it? What of this strange and sudden alliance with Zelgadiss and his men? What about the Philosopher's Stone? There's so much gong on that Gourry doesn't know… I guess he'll just have to wait until the next chapter!


	10. Chapter 009

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 9 **

Just outside Atlas City, Lina explained what had happened to her while she was separated from Gourry. After being captured she was taken to an old abandoned looking mansion and was questioned. Of course she hadn't answered them, so they tortured her… with excessive name calling and forcing her to kiss a fish-man monster and other… _unorthodox_ tortures.

Then, in the middle of the night Zelgadiss had come and cut her free and helped her escape… only to use her as a human projectile to throw off their pursuit, which was none other than Rezo himself, then Zell - that was her pet name for the chimera, apparently - had scooped her up and an caring her until after dawn, evading Rezo in the process. It was then that Lina found that they were being pursued by Rezo himself, not some sort of identity thief, and he was also Zelgadiss's grandfather.

Upon further prying on Lina's part she also found out that Rezo was Zelgadiss's grandfather, and that he was the one responsible for him being a chimera, a state that the chimera would kill his grandfather for… and a ll that led up to the Philosopher's Stone, which was hidden in the statuette, and happened to be the most powerful magical power amplifier in existence.

That was what Gourry got out of the hour-long talk Lina had put him through at the dinner table. All in all, Gourry would have had the Reader's digest version and concentrated on eating the good food, the best he'd had in a while.

"God girl…" Rodimus muttered, "You talk a _lot_."

"I do?" Lina asked, caught off guard by the statement.

As one Zelgadiss, his two men, and Gourry nodded with an "Mmm-hmm."

"Now that everyone is up to date," Zelgadiss broke in before Lina could find more to add to her narration, "may I ask you a question: Are you going to give me the Philosopher's Stone now?"

"No, not on your life." Gourry said calmly and evenly before taking a drink.

Zelgadiss and Zolf both started to stand up to protest, but Gourry cut them off with a simple explanation, that it would be a waste to use it for revenge.

"What, are you going to start a fight now?" Lina asked, obviously unpleased with the behavior.

They stood there for a moment, as if contemplating it, and then sat down again.

"We can't let you or Rezo have it, right Lina?" Gourry asked, he thought he had the situation… but there might be something he was missing, or that had been drowned out by Lina's oration.

"We can't trust him, of course, but there's more to this than him wanting his eyesight back." Lina said, explaining her position to the others, "What is Rezo up to, really?"

"Here we go." The innkeeper said bringing several big plates of food, which Lina was excited about. She hadn't wanted to eat while talking, best behavior for Zell and his company, Gourry guessed… but she definitely was happy about the arrival.

"I haven't had a decent meal in ages!" Lina squealed, never mind that it hadn't even been close to a week, "I've been dreaming of this! It's what life is all about!"

And with that Lina became a human hurricane, wreaking havoc and destruction upon the food. How she could eat so much so fast was a mystery to most people as they edged back, probably a good idea considering how much she was acting like a starving beast.

"Keep eating like that and you'll pop…" Gourry said dryly, and barely managed to avoid the fork she threw in response.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Later, after cleaning out the food, Gourry found himself following Lina and the others to find an inn and bed down for the night. They were just outside one Lina had said was run by friends of her family when a small boy burst out the door and ran straight into Lina taking them both down into a tangle of limbs.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Lina yelled at the boy as she disentangled herself, "You could hurt someone."

"Y-yeas!" The boy replied, close to tears, "I-I'm sorry miss."

"Aww! Don't cry."Lina replied giving him a hug, who knew that those tears would have that effect on the Dragon Spooker?

The boy suddenly stopped crying, though it wasn't a natural stop. It was because he'd been turned into stone.

Lina leapt back and babbled about it, as anyone would who had just hugged a person and had them turn into a statue.

"Look!" Zelgadiss directed their attention to a floating sphere with an eye engraved into it.

The eye hovered for a second before Rezo appeared underneath it, oddly translucent. Gourry reached for his sword and was cut off by Lina, who had recovered upon finding the cause of the child suddenly turning to stone. "It's an illusion Gourry, he's not really here."

Gourry nodded and the ghostlike image began to speak, sound coming from the floating eye lent is an odd, disconnected feeling.

"Ah, Lina Inverse, I had hoped to find you soon." The Rezo-image smiled, "We _do_ have business to discuss."

"What do you mean Rezo?" Lina asked, not even bothering to disguise her hostility.

"The Philosopher's Stone…" Rezo gestured to the people around him and they too became stone statues, stuck in their normal everyday activities, but still wearing their clothes. "I was prepared to offer you the life of the boy… but I see now that you need more persuasion, so I'm offering you the lives of everyone in this town, Atlas City and all it's smaller surrounding towns."

"What? Why" Gourry asked, "They have nothing to do with us or you!"

"Well, yes, that's true swordsman… but you see, sooner or later you won't have anyone left in the world, except your small group… and then the world will be nearly as empty to you as it is to me. I want that to cure my blindness, and I will not stop until I have it."

"So, that's what this is all about? Your blindness?" Lina asked indignantly, "I don't think you're being totally level with me…" Lina sighed, there wasn't much choice here, not when Rezo had in effect an infinite number of hostages. "Where are you? We'll make the trade in person."

The image of Rezo smiled and bowed, "So nice of you to see reason. I will be in my tower to the east."

Zelgadiss threw a knife into the floating orb, shattering it to pieces, before turning a finger on Lina. "You! How could you!"

"Zel, he has an infinite number of hostages… we've got to give them their lives back. It wouldn't be right not to… besides, if he's not playing straight with us it'll be five against one. Well, if you're there with your men Zel."

Zelgadiss nodded, "I do not trust him, Lina."

Lina nodded, "I don't like it any more than you do."

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Just how far is this tower supposed to be?" Gourry asked, they were already a better part of a day's journey from Atlas City, where they'd stocked up on supplies.

"I don't know… he didn't say." Lina admitted tiredly.

"I think we can make it there a little after noon." Zelgadiss said. "I believe the tower he was speaking of is a certain ancient tower, a thousand or more years old."

"Something from the time of _the_ War of The Monster's Resurrection? When one of the pieces of Shabranigdo was reborn?" Lina asked excitedly, apparently it was a rare thing… but then thousand plus years is a long time to survive.

Zelgadiss nodded. "Legends tell of it as the final stronghold of the monsters that fell during that war, and only then after that piece had been sealed away."

"Really?" Lina asked, this brought up several questions in her mind… and she could imagine it being a piece of a rather nasty puzzle, one she desperately hoped was only fear and paranoia.

Zelgadiss nodded, only confirming her fears, and was about to say something else when he was interrupted.

"There it is!" Gourry exclaimed, pointing at their destination, still a long way off but now visible. "You know… it doesn't look safe."

Lina just stared at her companion, of course a thousand year old tower that was a stronghold for the monsters was _not_ going to be a safe place, in _any_ sense of the word.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Okay, that is just creepy…" Lina muttered as the door opened with a shrill squeal that made her think of ancient, dry bones rubbing against each other and crying out… not that she'd actually heard thousand-year-old bones rubbing together. "Zell, do you know what's in here?"

"Mostly just empty space…" Zelgadiss replied as he walked past her and into the middle of the foyer, "Until you reach the top level, that's where he'll be."

Lina nodded as she walked toward the center of the room, it would be almost a given that Rezo had magical means of observing and communicating with people in this tower, so Lina yelled into the empty foyer, "Rezo! Hey, Rezo! We've come like you told us to."

Moments later there was a humming noise and a red glow that resolved at the head of a staircase into Rezo. "Heh, no need to shout Lina Inverse… I _do_ have good ears, you know."

"Rezo!" Gourry grabbed the hilt of his sword just as Lina's arm blocked the space between himself and the Red Priest.

"No Gourry… it's only an image, like before." Lina said quietly to him, then turned back to the Rezo-image when he started to say something.

"I wish to bid you all welcome." Rezo said with a comfortable smile, like a king who knows that he is the most well protected person in several kingdoms. "Please forgive the form I've taken…"

"Have you no honor?" Gourry demanded, hoping to settle the whole matter quickly… if they could, then those people could be returned to normal.

"I am a bit occupied at the moment, prior commitments you understand." Rezo said through his image, "But I still wish to have the Philosopher's Stone."

"I'd prefer to give it to you in person." Lina said, obviously she had something she wanted to say to the man, "I want to ask you something."

"Ah, it is agreed then." The Rezo-image nodded, "You will come to the top of the tower, we will trade there, _and_ I will answer your questions."

With that the image blurred into a red streak and vanished toward the top of the tower. Gourry followed the image upwards and was a bit disappointed with how high of a climb it was, it would take several hours to reach the top, and that was an optimistic estimate.

"Geez, that's going to be a pain to climb." Lina muttered, mirroring Gourry's own sentiments.

Making several gestures Lina quickly completed her spell with a shout of "Levitation!" and was soon in flight, followed by Zell who had his two men with him in his spell.

"Come on Gourry!" Lina said as she floated just above eye-level for a moment, "We're going to the top, so hang on tight."

"Um, ok…" Gourry reluctantly grabbed on to Lina and they were off the ground and floating up towards the ceiling. When they were thirty of forty feet up Gourry eyed the ground warily as he asked, "Hey, I can't fall, can I?"

"Only if you let go." Lina said with a laugh.

"What?" Gourry scrambled up Lina and crushed her in a death-grip, "I don't want to fall Lina, I don't want to fall!"

"Wha? Gourry!" Lina screamed, as best she could, "You're squeezing me and _watch where you put your hands_!"

Lina kicked Gourry off and onto the top floor which they'd managed to reach during their little struggle.

"Ah, NO! **_LINA!_**" Gourry screamed before hitting the floor, believing that she's just sent him on a one-way express trip to the ground level. "Th-that was cruel, Lina." Gourry said in a quieter voice as he picked himself off the floor and they made their way to a set of large, heavy doors that Zelgadiss was indicating as the way they should go.

The doors creaked open before anybody even touched them and they revealed, sitting at the end of a long table, Rezo. The Red Priest seemed to have just sat down, but what was interesting was that in front of the blind man were hundreds of candles, all of which were lit.

Lina and Zelgadiss were the first to enter the room, followed closely by Gourry, Rodimus, and Zolf.

"I've been waiting for you…" Rezo smiled and gestured towards the table, where chairs for everyone appeared, "Sit, my good and dear friends."

"Looks like you're the real Rezo this time." Lina smiled, sat down, and pulled out the statuette, "The Philosopher's Stone is in side of this."

"You will give it to me then?" Rezo asked calmly, almost in a friendly tone.

"Come on! It's not going to be that easy!" Lina yelled across the table at her Red-robed antagonist.

Rezo chuckled amiably, "Come now, surely you don't think I could be defeated here… do you?"

"There's one or three things I want to know first," Lina replied, not bothering to answer Rezo's obviously rhetorical question. "Answer them or I'll blow this thing to smithereens right now." Lina demanded and began charging up some sort of spell.

"What?" Zelgadiss turned a surprised look at her then leaned over and whispered, "Just what are you playing at?"

"Let's cut to the chase… what are you really after?" Lina asked Rezo, sparing only a moment to give Zelgadiss a reassuring nod.

"What, you mean Zelgadiss hasn't told you already?" It was hard to tell if the Red Priest was surprised, amused, both, or even if he cared.

"You mean that line about curing your blindness?" Lina said with a bit of venom that told everyone that she thought it was a blatant lie.

"Well, I could explain it to you…" Rezo sighed, "but you would never understand. None of you could."

"Even if that's the case it still doesn't explain something… why you didn't tell us the truth when we first met!" Lina pointed accusingly at Rezo… but then she realized that he couldn't see that gesture. "And what were you doing when you sent that monster and Dilgear to get the statuette? If you really wanted the stone it would have bee quicker for you to just come and get it yourself… unless you had something 'more important' to do."

"Is there some other reason you need it?" Zelgadiss asked looking back and forth between the statuette and his grandfather.

"Maybe you really do want to cure your eyes," Lina admitted, "but your methods are what I don't like."

"You don't mean…" Zolf began, only to be interrupted by Gourry.

"I'm sorry, but I really don't understand all this… either he wants the statuette for his eyes or he doesn't."

"Oh, Come On Gourry!" Lina screamed, beaned Gourry with the statuette, "I'm getting to the conclusion soon!"

"Well then, what _is_ your conclusion?" Rezo asked, wondering if she could have figured it all out.

"Your deal with that monster…" Lina started, "was something along the lines of gaining your eyesight in return for resurrecting Shabranigdo, the Dark Lord of the Monster Race!"

"Huh!" Zelgadiss and both of his man were aghast at that idea, that Rezo, or anyone for that matter, would agree to restore Shabranigdo was… _insane_.

"Well, am I correct?" Lina asked with a satisfied smirk, all the while hoping that her shot in the dark _wasn't_ on target.

There was absolute silence, in which the tension built to almost tangible levels… only to be interrupted by Gourry's excited cry of "WHAT? Resurrect Shabranigdo?"

"That's why you couldn't tell us the truth, and also why you had to spend so much time preparing to do it… isn't it?" Lina asked, ignoring Gourry's outburst.

"Well done!" Rezo laughed and clapped, "Well done indeed! A brilliant case of deduction… and I'll be truthful, it _is_ all exactly as you supposed. Resurrecting Shabranigdo is the cure for my blindness."

"I don't believe it!" Zolf yelled, probably going through a mental list of his attack spells in case he had to use them.

"Who would imagine?" Zelgadiss asked with a calm rage as he rose from his seat, "I didn't think that even you, _Rezo_, would be both so malicious and so stupid to destroy the world for your own benefit."

Rezo shrugged, "If the powers of men are not enough, then one must turn to the gods or the monsters… and the Dark Lord's power is the greatest of all. I believe that Shabranigdo is sealed within this tower, and _that_ is why I have brought you here with the Philosopher's Stone."

"Are you mad?" Rodimus demanded, accentuating his cry with a sharp bang of his halberd on the stone floor.

"Um, well, anyway… now that we know all this," Lina broke in, sounding a bit shaken at first, but then strengthening her resolve, "we _can't_ let you have the Stone!"

Rezo reached for his staff, an iron rod with a ring atop from which smaller rings of various materiels dangled, "Well, we shall see what happens, won't we?"

"I'll blast this thing right here and now!" Lina threatened with only a small pang of regret in her voice. Though it was useless to her right now because she didn't know how to unseal the Philosopher's Stone from the statuette, while Rezo obviously would.

Rezo hit his staff on the floor and it made an odd jangling noise that caused Lina to pause for a moment, but it was a long enough moment for Rezo to quickly, yet calmly, recite a spell that was obviously his own creation.

"_Life born of hardest stone,_

_formed of weak flesh._

_Let this now release you,_

_and return you to your home!_"

Lina blinked, nothing seemed different, but that's because she was watching the walls for signs of golems or some other surprise that Rezo might have cooked up. Gourry on the other hand saw Zelgadiss hunch over for a moment and then gain a dead look in his eyes, like a man sleepwalking with his eyes open.

"_Become one with my will; become mine._" Rezo finished, and as he did so ah red glow began to emanate from Zelgadiss's eyes followed by an inhuman choking sound, something that sounded very much like free will being strangled before one's own eyes.

"Go, Zelgadiss! Go!" Was all that Rezo said and the chimera sprang into action, knocking Lina down as he slammed into her and pried the statuette away, flinging it back across the room at Rezo, who caught it easily in a spell and let it float into his hand.

"Good, now keep them occupied Zelgadiss." Rezo said ans he turned and exited out of a door at the back of the room.

"Zelgadiss!" Gourry shouted trying to bring the chimera back to his senses.

"He's under Rezo's control!" Lina managed to get out before the chimera lifted her up and, once again, used the diminutive sorceress as a projectile, which he aimed at his own men, Zolf and Rodimus.

Zelgadiss immediately followed up by drawing his sword and charging Rodimus, who fortunately hd been able to dodge the sorcerous projectile, unlike Zolf. Zelgadiss pressed his attack, to which Rodimus had to fall back, either unable or unwilling to attack Zelgadiss.

Gourry looked back at Rodimus and Zelgadiss then at the doorway through which the Red Priest had made his exit, taking a moment to decide, he ran to the doorway. Saving the others would be a moot point if Shabranigdo were resurrected… especially if it was true that Shabranigdo would have so much more power than anything he and Lina had faced before, it was something that he should, at all costs, try to stop.

Making a flying leap that would have astounded Gourry had he been watching Zelgadiss instead of heading after Rezo, Zelgadiss rebounded off the doors, flinging them open, and landing right in front of him, chipping small craters where he landed, and charged to meet Gourry.

Gourry countered with a block, barely able to get his sword from its sheath in time to do so, and was forced back from the continued onslaught, which barely gave him enough time to block, and not nearly enough time to key the release on his sword…

"Master Zelgadiss!" Rodimus rushed in to help, and having to split his attacks between two opponents, Zelgadiss was unable to push them back. "Come to your senses!"

"I'll take care of him…" Gourry said as he continued to block, "I'll only need two seconds to undo my sword."

"Damn while he holds us back…" Zolf muttered at that same instant, then began chanting some strange spell Lina had never heard.

"No! Gourry, wait!" Lina cried, realizing that he intended to use the Sword of Light on her chimera friend. "Leave this to me!"

"What are you going to do?" Gourry yelled back to Lina, never taking his eye off the berserk chimera.

"We don't have much time, I'll settle this in one shot!" Lina ran up to just behind Gourry and Rodimus and began chanting her own spell, finishing before Zolf finished his own she sent a Diem wing slamming into Zelgadiss which literally grabbed him in the wind and smashed him into the stone wall of the room.

"Wake up!" Lina yelled fierily as she followed up with a kick to his back that would have likely sent a normal person to bed-rest for a week and fired another spell directly into the back of his neck.

"Ugggh… what happened?" Zelgadiss muttered as he pulled himself out of the rather painful depression that now graced the floor of the tower… just in time to get an elbow to the top of his head, courtesy of the little redheaded sorceress that had earned the title of Dragon Spooker, for obvious reasons.

"You know Lina… I thought he was back to normal." Gourry observed as Lina rubbed her elbow, apparently hitting Zelgadiss's stone-like head with it was actually painful, imagine that.

"Master Zelgadiss!" Rodimus ran over to help the chimera up. He'd _never_ seen his master get like that beaten before, and certainly not with that kind of merciless animal ferocity.

"What happened to me?" Zelgadiss repeated, rubbing several sore spots, a list that included his back, neck, and the top of his head.

"You were under Rezo's control." Lina started to explain, only to be interrupted by an explosive _whoosh!_ of wind as a giant snake of fire flared into existence and down the corridor after Rezo.

"What was _that_?" Lina gasped, then tracked the magic back to Zolf, who was dusting his hands off and coming towards them. Obviously she'd underestimated the former mummy-man's magical capacity.

"The _Fire Dragon_…" Zolf said dryly in answer, "It's been in my family for three generations."

"Ah, I see." Lina nodded, maybe he had more power than she'd thought, but he still seemed to have a very limited range of magic. Turning back to Zelgadiss, she quickly explained that he'd probably been programed to obey him when Rezo had given him his chimera body, and that Rezo had activated it with that last spell.

Zelgadiss shook with rage for a moment then punched the floor with a very vocal "DAMNIT!"

"There's no time for this! We've got to stop him!" Gourry shouted as he bounded through the doorway and down the corridor, closely followed by the others. He pulled out his pin and flipped the latch on his blade as he ran, discarding the blade… he wouldn't fight this at anything less than his best.

Gourry was slightly surprised when he suddenly rushed out into a large room, followed closely by everyone behind him running to his sides. Everyone was staring at the center of the room where a black aura has surrounded Rezo and seemed to melt into him by a strange process of absorption.

Abruptly the last of that dark fog vanished, rushing into Rezo and leaving everything both silent and still.

Then Rezo's eyes flew open, startling everyone with their intensity, and he smiled warmly at the group. "I can _see_ you! I can see you _all_!"

"Lina Inverse!" Rezo said in an excited, yet friendly voice, then his gaze slid over to Gourry, "And her companion, Gourry Gabriev, too!"

Rezo's eyes locked with Zelgadiss and he loosened up in that sort way that family members that have been apart for years do, "Zelgadiss… what happened to you?"

"You did!" Zelgadiss snarled as he thrust his finger toward his grandfather, "You did this all to me!"

"Wha-!" Rezo's voice was cut off in mid-word as he made a choking, gagging sound and clutched his head, squeezing his eyes shut and doubling over in obvious pain. He let out a wail and opened his eyes, no longer the soft brown but a ruby red that was emanating a sickly looking light.

The light coalesced into a bright light, and as Rezo bent back in pain, clawing at his face causing great bleeding gouges. From his eyes, now pointing skyward, the ruby-red beam of intensified into a column of light that surrounded Rezo's body and distorted it making it seem as if it were growing at a rapid rate and changing its shape and texture into something quite inhuman.

"He was wrong! Shabranigdo wasn't sealed in the tower, he was sealed in his _eyes_!"Lina said in horror as she watched the rebirth of the King of Monsters. "The tower was only the place for the ceremony…"

Zelgadiss began working on some magic, it was Shamanistic magic, which Lina only had a minimal amount of knowledge in, and Zolf began working a black-magic attack-spell, and not just _any_ attack spell, but _the_ attack spell… the Dragon Slave.

"_Darkness from twilight, crimson from blood that flows;_

_buried in the flow of time…_" Zolf began, the familiar words striking Lina's memory.

It was a description of what they'd just seen, what they _were_ seeing. "No! Zolf stop!"

"_In Thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness!_

_Let those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power you and I possess!_" Zolf continued, paying no heed to what Lina was saying…

"_DRAGON SLAVE!_" he finished, sending the massively powerful orb of magic energies toward Shabranigdo in the hopes that the most powerful black-magic spell could destroy him, but it was calling on Shabranigdo's own power to destroy Shabranigdo… it wouldn't work.

"Zolf, no!"' Rodimus charged in to grab his companion and pulled him towards the exit.

It was useless though, because Shabranigdo raised a stonelike claw of hand and absorbed the Dragon Slave that Zolf had summoned. Then, with a flick of his wrist, let loose a single blast that vaporized both Zolf and Rodimus.

"Ah, I was so hoping for some exercise… but these gnats aren't worth my time." Shabranigdo said in a voice that sounded like stones grinding together then, turning his glowing red eyes on the remaining three, he said "In gratitude for my revival I offer you a bargain, you may either fight me and die, or you may swear loyalty to me, become my servants, and I will grant you extraordinarily long lives."

"Gourry, Zell, _run_!" Lina yelled at them both, grabbing Gourry and dragging him along.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: 

Well, considering the length of the original chapter I decided to cut it off here, trust me, it's for the better. As it is this is about 4500 words into the original ten-thousand word chapter.


	11. Chapter 010

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 10 **

Following their fleeing the tower and crossing the barren wasteland that surrounded it they came to a small village to the north of Atlas city. All its inhabitants were alive and well, meaning they weren't stone so either Rezo's spell had been lifted when he had received the statuette, broken when he'd died, or that it had been out of the affected area.

Whatever the reason, the three fleeing travelers needed supplies and could do with a good night's sleep in the local inn. Zelgadiss of all people insisted that they have a meal at the best restaurant in the village.

When Lina finally asked him why, about halfway through her first plate of a steak in mushroom sauce, he replied that it was probably going to be his last meal.

"I'm going to face Shabranigdo." He said as he grabbed a piece of garlic bread, "I can't just let the world be destroyed by Rezo's stupidness… even if it is hopeless."

Gourry nodded, patting the hilt to his Sword of Light, he understood the sentiment. Better to go out fighting, than suffer watching the world destroyed. "I'll go with you, and we'll both fight… to the death, if need be." Gourry said.

Lina looked at Gourry with a bit of shock. Sure she had thought him a bit dumb, but this was ridiculous, the behavior of these two… _men_! She stood up and pounded the table, "Quit that you two! I don't want to die, I want to live… there's too much in the world for me to see and do yet. If I get tired of grabbing treasures and studying magic, I could start my own business. I still want to be in love, to have my first kiss (that fishman doesn't count)…" Lina added before Gourry could bring it up.

"Nobody said that you had to come." Zelgadiss said, taking a drink of his coffee before returning to his own lambchop. "You don't have to fight."

"Yeah." Gourry nodded in agreement before asking, "Is there a point, Lina?"

"No, I wasn't saying that I wasn't going to fight!" Lina said, a bit angry at the two, "Don't you see that, and this _is_ the point, if there's even the tiniest chance of winning and you act like there isn't then it becomes _no chance_? What I'm saying is that if you fight, fight to win."

Gourry nodded, setting his empt bowl of soup to the side and pulling a delicious looking roast of deer meat towards himself. "You misunderstood us Lina… what we mean is that we _will_ win, even if we have to seal his death with our own. You were the one that told me about what would happen if Shabranigdo were loose on the world… two lives would be a small price to pay to keep it from happening."

Lina nodded sullenly, the two weren't _listening_ to her. "But I don't want you to die, either of you, you're my friends…"

• • • • • • • • • • •

After sleeping in the inn the three set out to confront Shabranigdo once again. This time it was to actually fight him, instead of just running away. Gourry had woken up earlier than everyone else to read the section on his book about monsters, and what it said about the Sword of Light itself.

As they traveled in the early-morning chill they talked of strategies and plans of attack. Lina bowed out saying that her own black magic drew off of the Dark Lord, or one of his subordinates, or the 'negative' emotions of terror, fear, hatred, and hostility. Lina laughed earning her an odd look.

"Well, using black magic on Shabranigdo is like saying 'Hey you! Could you help me kill you?', you see?" Lina explained killing her own joke.

There was a moment of silence.

"How about your Shamanistic magic, Zelgadiss?" Lina asked the chimera.

"It won't work." Zelgadiss said shaking his head.

"How… you can't just give up!" Lina said with indignation.

"Do you remember the spell I used back in the tower?" Zelgadiss asked pointedly.

"Well, yes… what was it anyway?" Lina asked, nodding in remembrance.

"It was a Ra Tilt." The chimera said quietly.

"What?" Lina looked at Zelgadiss with disbelief. "You mean to tell me that…"

Zelgadiss nodded, then finished Lina's sentence. "The most powerful Shamanistic attack spell did nothing to the King of Monsters."

"What's that mean?" Gourry broke in, again asking a question that would, no, should, have been obvious to anyone.

"The Ra Tilt… it is the most powerful attack in Shamanistic Spirit magic." Lina explained, "It's their equivalent of a Dragon Slave."

"What?" Gourry looked at Lina, obviously surprised.

Zelgadiss nodded, taking over the explanation, "Shamanism uses power from the Astral Plane, and the Dark Lord exists as an astral life form far, far stronger than ourselves. So strong that he can, in fact, cause an aggravated disruption of astral energies… enough deflecting a human's astral power is virtually no effort at all. In short, none of the powers that we can get from the astral plane will be enough to kill him."

"So… you're saying that… the Dark Lord has too much spirit for regular magic to work! Right?" Gourry said, clapping his hands together and looking like he'd solved a puzzle.

"N… well… um, I can't say you're wrong." Lina admitted with a little laugh, it was definitely an odd way of summarizing the explanation.

"So, I guess all that leaves is the Sword of Light…" Gourry said somberly as he looked at the hilt in his hands… the fate of the world really _was_ in his hands.

"This means that you, Gourry will have to lead the attack while Lina and I support you with our magic." Zelgadiss said looking intently at Gourry, after a minute he nodded and they continued on in silence.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"So, you've come, eh, Shabranigdo?" Lina asked, in her typical opponent-taunting manner.

The only response was that Shabranigdo took two earth shaking steps forward. He'd grown from his rebirth, no longer man sized, he towered over the trees in the forest, most of them coming to only half his height.

Gourry didn't like that too much, he'd rather not have Lina make Shabranigdo mad, either at himself or her… especially if the goal was to draw his fire.

"So, you've decided to face me?" Shabranigdo asked, his voice was now a deep bass rumble that still held an undertone of rocks sliding together.

"Uh-huh!" Lina said with a cheerful wink. "And man are you ever going to regret messing around with us!"

Shabranigdo laughed at that, evidently being a super-powerful monster bent on the destruction of the world doesn't necessarily exclude possessing a sense of humor; it was a deep rumbling sound that made one want to throw up. "How foolish can you humans be? There was that mage that tried to use my own power against me, that was foolish. Then there was the old one that tried to save him, he was even more foolish…"

"How, how dare you!" Zelgadiss shouted, thinking of Zolf and Rodimus and their sacrifice, "You call them fools?"

"Yes, I do!" Shabranigdo laughed again, "But compared to them… you three are far greater fools!"

"So, that's how you see human lives? Foul being!" Gourry yelled, using Shabranigdo's attitude to kindle enough anger to overcome the aura of fear that surrounded the King of Monsters. It was just enough to give him the motivation to act, "Light come forth!"

"We'll show you who the fool is." Zelgadiss said with resolution, drawing his own sword. He took two steps, staying a constant distance from Gourry, then broke into a run… charging Shabranigdo. Appearently the crack about his friends, Rodimus and Zolf, had angered him more than Gourry had figured.

Shabranigdo merely raised a hand and caused a fierce gale to blow Zelgadiss back, literally off his feet. The gusts caused Gourry and Lina both to cover their eyes as dirt, rocks, and twigs were flung into them with enough force to really sting.

"_GAAV... FLARE!_" Lina retaliated with some sort of spell, a big one that sailed over Gourry's head and to his side… only to be absorbed by Shabranigdo's outstretched hand.

"Awww… Why'd I even try…" Lina whined, deflated that the spell did nothing.

Shabranigdo chuckled and waved his hand, three purple orbs shot out and headed for Lina. "Yours, I believe."

Lina dodged two, while the third landed right in front of Gourry.

"What did you do Lina?" Gourry yelped as Shabranigdo shot three more of the orbs out of a single finger, each seeking its own victim.

"I just wanted to see if it'd work, that's all!" Lina yelped, throwing some other spell into it to annihilate both orbs of magic.

Zelgadiss dodged and started his own spell while Gourry caught his on the blade of his sword and shot it back at Shabranigdo, pale blue in color now. It struck, but seemed to have no effect other than a loud cracking noise.

"_Vlave Howl!_" Zelgadiss said, touching the ground with his open hand as magic leapt and sparked around the point of contact shattering the ground in the direction of Shabranigdo.

The magic kept tearing the ground until it reached a point to the side of him and split into five separate rends in the soil. Those five rends then suddenly stopped for a second before geysers of molten lava spewed from their terminating points.

The lava geysers then all arced into Shabranigdo, covering him and hardening as everyone watched. It seemed for a moment that Zelgadiss's spell might have worked, until there was a cracking sound and Shabranigdo burst free.

Normal geysers of water sprang into existence in several odd points, but the water vanished and was replaced with lava.

"An amusing trick… However you should use lava like _this_!" Shabranigdo waved his hand and the lava bent and swayed for a moment before resolving into winged beasts that looked lizard-like and bat-like and had Red glowing eyes like Shabranigdo himself.

"Go." Shabranigdo said, and the winged things took to the sky, circling once before beginning their aerial attacks.

Lina and Zelgadiss ducked for cover as several of the wing-beasts things, Laxards for lack of a name, while Gourry dodged and counterattacked with his sword.

The Sword of Light cut easily and cleanly through the Laxard's neck. There wasn't even enough time for it to cry as it nearly instantly cooled into rock and crumbled as it crashed.

"Ah, this'll take for ever!" Gourry said as he looked at the number of Laxards that were circling in the air.

"Then I'll settle this with one spell." Zelgadiss said gathering an orb of blue magic in his hand as he began to recite some spell that ended with, "_Van Rehl!_"

Zelgadiss tossed the orb into the sky where it solidified into a crystalline looking shield that surrounded the three. It blocked the Laxards attack and they were too close to pull away so they impacted the shield… shattering into rock and sliding off the shield just before it faded out of existence.

"All right Zell!" Lina cheered the shamanistic chimera… but the cheer became a gasp as Lina saw a Laxard that hadn't been destroyed swoop down upon Zell.

"What!" Zelgadiss asked turning just in time to see the Laxard spew a gout of fire right into his face. The chimera fell in a heap and the Laxard landed right on top of him and set his clothes on fire.

"Zell!" Lina cried, about to spring into action while Shabranigdo chuckled in the background. "Gourry, let's go!"

Gourry nodded and settled in a ready position while Lina started a spell, the go signal wold be when she cast it. Right on cue Lina yelled "Freeze Arrow!"

The freeze arrow impacted the Laxard in the face causing a dark stone gash and getting it's attention away from Zelgadiss and on to her. She followed with a quick 'Ray Wing' and took to the air with the Laxard in hot pursuit. Lina flew fast at Shabranigdo and did a quick loop at the last moment, planning on letting the Laxard smash into Shabranigdo.

Shabranigdo wasn't about to let that happen and with a blink the Laxard was no more.

"But wait there's more!" Lina yelled, obviously heralding the birth of the infomercial and proving that she did indeed earn the title of '_The Natural Enemy of All That Live_', before blasting him with a fireball.

The fireball did nothing, as expected by Gourry. But then again it wasn't designed to hurt Shabranigdo, it was designed to give Gourry an opening

"Do you still refuse to see this is futile?" Shabranigdo asked, providing Gourry with the opening that he needed.

"Now Gourry!" Lina yelled.

Gourry leapt to the attack, "It's my turn now!" he yelled as he brought the Sword of Light down to bear on Shabranigdo…

Only it didn't cut him, not at all. Shabranigdo had simply caught the blade of the Sword of Light, the _blade_.

"The Sword of Light… that which slew the legendary beast Zanaffar… but it will not slay me." Shabranigdo declared, still gripping the sword. "I am no Demon-beast!"

Gourry's eyes went wide… if the Sword of Light couldn't even cut Shabranigdo… No! He wouldn't accept it, the blade _would_ cut Shabranigdo.

The blade gave off a flare of energy and cut a nasty gouge in one of Shabranigdo's three fingers even as Shabranigdo raised his other hand and fired off a blast magic energies and sent Gourry flying back a dozen feet.

"Gourry!" Lina cried, concerned that the big guy's fate was the same as Zolf and Rodimus's...

Gourry struggled to his feet, stumbling once, "Don't sound so worried Lina… I'm not dead yet!"

"Neither am I!" Lina's attention was drawn to the speaker, Zelgadiss, "I'm still ready to fight!"

"Zell? Gourry?" Lina couldn't help let her happiness at the two being alive show.

"So, you can still move?" Shabranigdo grunted, "Impressive. But it won't last."

Shabranigdo drew back and a yellow orb formed in his mouth, ans after a few moments of charging, hundreds of slivers of sickly yellow light flew towards Gourry and Zelgadiss.

The two dropped to their knees screaming, it was the only thing they _could_ do. Each of the yellow slivers was like having a twig shoved through your body where they impacted, clothes and armor had no effect on them, yet their victims remained conscious as part of Shabranigdo's peculiar magic. It was, after all, a _special_ gift from him to them.

"Ah, such lovely screams…" Shabranigdo sighed as he mimed a human who was enjoying an exquisite and wonderful meal that been prepared in their honor. "These are the screams I've longed to hear."

"What?" Lina asked, surprised that humans actually had anything that a monster would want.

"The power of the monster race flows from the negative energies in the human heart." Shabranigdo explained, it wouldn't hurt to give this little mortal a bit of understanding on how things really were… "Terror, anger, sorrow, despair… they all become my power."

"N-no..." Lina said quietly as it dawned on her what it was saying. She'd always thought that monsters had thrived on destruction, but that was just incidental to generating all the emotions that Shabranigdo had just named.

"For thousands of years I have existed, sealed in the blood of men… reborn again and again until, that is, I found this man… Rezo." Shabranigdo continued his explanation in detail, hoping to spur even more fear from Lina Inverse. "His body was one that would be most suitable for me… the one that had the most potential, and now I must accumulate as much power as possible, so I may release the piece of myself that was sealed by the Water Dragon King… and I find your fear is a most suitable fuel. So, let me hear your screams, let them become my power; the power wherewith I shall destroy this world and return to the Sea of Chaos!"

Returning to the Sea of Chaos… so _that_ was Shabranigdo's ultimate objective, what all the monster race would strive to do. Lina understood what was happening, what Shabranigdo was doing, and yet she was virtually powerless to stop it. If only there was a more powerful Monster Lord she could call…

Shabranigdo chuckled as he felt the horror and helplessness running off of Lina… she would give him much. "I give these to you as well." Shabranigdo declared as more of the sickly yellow slivers shot forth, this time at Lina.

She tried to dodge the magic, and amazingly enough almost succeeded. Unfortunately, it was only _almost_; one of the yellow slivers grazed her thigh and she collapsed to the ground in exquisite agony for a moment, but a moment only. Because it had been a glancing blow it had severely limited effects and Lina was going to take advantage of that by casting a quick healing spell to correct the imbalances caused by Shabranigdo's spell.

"Oh, casting a healing spell?" Shabranigdo asked in a mocking tone, then dropped into a dry seriousness as he charged another spell, this one a pale-green, "It will not change the outcome."

Several minutes prior Gourry had been in immense pain, having been hit by one or two dozen of those yellow pain-splinters, yet he managed to gain as sitting position… there was no way he could intercept Shabranigdo's spell in time. There was only one option, a longshot, but the only shot.

"Lina!" Gourry yelled as he heaved the hilt of his sword to her, "Use the Sword of Light!"

He'd read about how the sword interacted with magic the other night, either as a dampener when used against the magic, or as an amplifier if used _with_ it. It all came down to what the sword did, and that was convert human will into a physical and spiritual energy construct by means unknown.

Lina solidly caught the hilt and looked at it blankly for a brief moment before realizing what Gourry wanted her to do. "Gourry!"

"Use it Lina!" Gourry shouted, crawling into a more seated position, "NOW!"

"Easy for you to say!" Lina automatically retorted, wondering just how to summon the blade, when it suddenly flickered into existence. Not the powerful and sudden flare that she'd seen when Gourry had used it, but it was enough for the moment…

"That _toy_ will not help you either." Shabranigdo chuckled at the sight of Lina wielding the Sword of Light. It really was a comical scene, the small sorceress wielding the warrior's weapon. If the warrior had managed only a flesh wound, and with his own weapon, then what could this little girl do?

"_Elemenkia Lance!_"Lina fired off the best monster-killing attack Shamanistic spell that she knew. Not nearly as powerful as a _Ra Tilt_, but enough that it would normally do some significant damage… not that she thought that she'd actually be able to hurt Shabranigdo with it, she only needed to interrupt his spell and buy herself a little more time… to do what? She didn't know. She'd burn that bridge when she crossed it.

What Lina _wasn't_ expecting was the amplification effect of the Sword of Light, instead of firing off as a small bright blue bolt, it was a _large_ bright blue bolt that shot forward at Shabranigdo.

There was a look of surprise in the instant before Shabranigdo moved into action and caught the bolt. The resulting backwash on the physical plane as the two magical forces was enough to cause a blinding flash and a burst of hot, dry wind.

"_That_ was an _Elemenkia Lance_?"Zelgadiss gaped as he saw the interaction, _felt_ the interaction with his Shamanist senses… it was incredible, probably very near the _Ra Tilt_ in power.

Shabranigdo growled, evidently displeased with this group of humans. "Still you refuse to understand that _that_ level of magic is useless against me."

Shabranigdo summoned a different spell this time, a purple orb marbled with black, a truly evil looking spell. "Soon we shall destroy this world…"

"NOOO! STOOOOOP!" Zelgadiss yelled, pulling himself up from the ground. "Do you really intend to destroy the world you longed to see?"

"Do you Rezo? Rezo!" Zelgadiss continued calling out, then seemed to choke for a moment before yelling "Grandpa!"

Lina wondered what Zelgadiss was yelling about until she realized that it hinged upon Shabranigdo's claim to have lived sealed in the blood of men. Where Shabranigdo's soul had once been sealed in Rezo's body, Rezo's soul was now sealed in Shabranigdo's body… or something quite like that.

It seemed to work though, whatever the reason, as Shabranigdo halted the spell for a moment and _looked_ at them all. It was a disconcerting feeling to be gazed at with eyes that seemes to be purpose-made to instill hatred, fear, and anger show compassion, but that was the exact feeling one got when they looked back into the glowing red eyes.

All Lina knew was that she had a chance, and she took it…

"_Darkness beyond blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night!_" She began. It was her most powerful spell, and the most dangerous for a miscast could reduce the world and all in it to oblivion.

"What? What _is_ this spell?" Shabranigdo asked in confusion, being a multi thousand year-old monster and being the ultimate source of black magic on this world he _should_ know any spell a human could cast. It was obviously a black magic spell, and it could only be an attack spell, but it wasn't calling at any of his power… or any of the powers he'd granted to his subordinates, the Monster Lords… "What is it?"

"_Lord of Darkness, shining like gold upon the Sea of Chaos…_" She continued, keeping an even meter and concentrating on using the spell on and with the Sword of light. The Sword of Light flickered and sparked as lightnings of energy flickered into existence along the blade.

"Impudent insect!" Shabranigdo yelled, roaring over the spell and restarting the purple one that Rezo had aborted… he had suddenly wearied of playing with these fools.

"_I call upon thee, swear myself to thee!_" The blade and sparks grew in size and fury until it seemed Lina was holding a torch that had decided to be a bonfire instead.

"_Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess!_" Lina smiled as she said the final lines of the spell, it would work, or there would be nothing left to fight over.

The lightning covering the Sword of Light turned black and the sword began emitting a high-pitched whine that made even Shabranigdo wince; and Lina brought the sword down in a simple overhanded swing as she completed the spell. "**_GIGA SLAVE!_**"

The same instant that Lina launched her Giga Slave from the hilt of the Sword of Light Shabranigdo had completed his spell and fired it off. The two spells met in the space between their casters and a war of magical energies ensued as each spell competed with the other for their target.

"Red priest Rezo!" Lina called, hoping that she could get some assistance from behind enemy lines, so to speak. "Now you must choose! Will you let your soul be consumed by Shabranigdo? Or will you take your vengeance upon him?"

"P-pathetic little f-fool!" Shabranigdo yelled out, obviously in a struggle against something other then the spell. He realized then that it called on power from the one being that was truly higher than he was, Lord of Nightmares.

The two were linked to their spells, the struggle of both belonged to them… and the spells to each other, and so, by proxy, Lina and Shabranigdo were linked. This was something that Zelgadiss knew and Gourry could only puzzle over as he watched the battle on the physical plane.

'_Dark Lord…_' It was Rezo's voice that Lina heard through the spell-link, she sae Rezo, in his human body open his eyes. She also heard Shabranigdo's mental cry of '_Don't interfere!_' Followed by Rezo's, who upon closing his eyes said, '_No, it must be done, you must be destroyed._'

It all ended then I a blinding flash and a concussion that knocked Gourry out cold and gave him a lovely set of bruises when he woke up.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Wha!" Gourry snapped to a sitting position, his first mistake upon waking up, and then he opened his eyes, his second mistake, to look at the person who'd touched him. It was Lina, not that bad… except that he felt like he had a hangover and the normal daylight made him want to scream in agony.

"Gourry!" Lina tackled him in a hug, and that didn't do much for his headache, "You're alive!"

Yep. She _was_ a sadist. No doubt about it, yelling in his ear like that. Gourry bit back a yell, mostly fearing that he'd inflict more pain on himself, and instead took a deep, calming breath. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Hey, Lina?"

"What Gourry?" Lina asked, wondering what was on his mind, especially now that they'd actually _defeated_ Shabranigdo.

"Where's the Sword of Light?" He asked.

It shattered her good mood, of all the things he just _had_ to bring that up! Lina sullenly reached into her cloak and tossed him the legendary artifact. "Here." She said rather glumly, she hated being found out like that.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Later the three found themselves traveling together in the general direction of Atlas City. There was an odd silence around the three though, until Gourry breached the subject that was on both his and Zelgadiss's minds.

"Uh, Lina, why is your hair white?" Gourry asked, he'd noticed it after his eyes had stopped throbbing and realized that it wasn't just the reflection of sunlight off her hair, but that her hair had actually turned white.

"Oh, it's ok." Lina laughed, "I just kinda over-exerted myself."

"Oh, okay." Gourry nodded in understanding, after all the three of them had just fought the King of Monsters.

"Uh, guys…" Lina began in a serious, and somewhat saddened tone.

"What?" Gourry and Zelgadiss both asked simultaneously.

"Rezo said 'Thank you'… and that he was sorry." Lina didn't quite know what to make of it, but obviously without Rezo the world would have been doomed.

Zelgadiss seemed to get cold and distant when she brought it up though and it didn't seem to her like pushing the issue would make it any better… unless she could tell him about it in a round-about way…

Lina stuck out her foot and tripped Gourry, and as she was leaning over to help him up she told him to ask about how the fight had ended. Lina was glad for having the lame-brained big-guy around, sometimes he made talking to _other_ people much easier, even if he was a pain to talk to himself.

"_How_ did you beat the Dark Lord?" Gourry asked, wondering why Lina wanted him to ask.

"Ah, it was nothing!" Lina said with a grin, and utterly confusing Gourry.

"Oh, so that means you're more powerful than he was?" Gourry asked, hoping to find a hint somewhere… if Lina had taught him anything it was that girls were strange creatures any way you looked at them.

"Cut it out! I had a snowball's chance in hell." Lina said, then she continued right where she wanted to go, "I only won because of the Sword of Light… and Rezo's help."

"Rezo's help?" Zelgadiss asked, stopping on the road in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Lina and Gourry both stopped and turned toward the chimera, both Zelgadiss and Gourry looked at Lina waiting for the explanation though.

"Well, it was the last vestiges of Rezo's spirit that held Shabranigdo back and let my _Giga Slave_ hit him." Lina explained, looking at Zelgadiss intently.

It seemed to mollify Zellgadiss somewhat, because the chimera commented on it with a calm and thoughtful voice, "I see… Rezo did that…"

"I guess you could say I'm only a third of what beat Shabranigdo…" Lina nodded, then she offered her theory, "Maybe, reviving Shabranigdo and turning Zelgadiss into a chimera weren't the actions of the _real_ Rezo… Maybe as Shabranigdo was trapped in his body Shabranigdo took control of him over a long period of time."

"So, are you saying I should believe that?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Well, if I was wrong I don't think that Rezo would have helped me." Lina offered, "Believing it or not is up to you."

"Well, whatever the reason, you did great." Gourry said, patting Lina on the head in the way a big brother would.

Zelgadiss nodded at the information… then sighed as Lina blew up at Gourry for treating her like a kid again.

A few minutes later the three resumed their journey and crested a hill on the road. Gourry, being the tallest commented that he could see Atlas City and, sure enough, as they crested the hill a moment later they could see the city spread out below. The activity was apparent, so they didn't have to worry about finding the city inhabited only by stone statues.

"Is that where you're going?" Zelgadiss asked, almost nervously.

"Yeah," Gourry nodded but was interrupted by Lina.

"Gourry, remember you only said you'd see me this far." She pointed out.

"Oh? Did I?" Gourry scratched his head, playing off of her using 'remember'.

"Don't tell me you forgot!" Lina screamed.

"Well…" Gourry said rubbing his chin, before changing the subject."What are you going to do next?"

Lina looked thoughtful for a moment then smiled an icky-sweet smile, "Gourry, did you forget how you said you'd give me the Sword of Light?"

"I never said that!" Gourry snapped out of teasing her in an instant.

"So, you're not going to give it to me?" Lina asked, on the verge of tears. Great big crocodile tears.

"Of course not!" Gourry said, and backed away from Lina a bit.

"Then I know where I'm headed now!" Lina cried triumphantly.

"Oh, where?" Gourry asked.

Lina giggled. "Wherever _you're_ going! I've decided to stick to you until you finally decide to give me the Sword of Light!"

It was just the answer that Gourry didn't want to hear… he still had too much to do. Things like developing a nonlethal side to the Gabriev style… ant it would be best if he didn't have to look after Lina.

"Uhhhhhh, I…" Gourry tried to think of a good reply, someething to direct Lina's attention while he slipped away when Zelgadiss walked up and patted him on the shoulder.

"Well, here we must part ways. It would be dangerous for me to enter the city like this." Zelgadiss said as he gestured to his burned cloak, the hood and mask he used to conceal himself had been burned away.

"Oh, Zel…" Lina looked disappointed that she wouldn't be seeing him any more, but shook his hand with a genuine big smile and said that it was good to meet him.

Surprisingly Zelgadiss smiled in return. Then after a few moments he turned and walked away, waving as he went.

"Hey, Zell!" Gourry called, but to no avail. It seemed the chimera wasn't to be swayed from his course.

"Well, that's that!" Lina said as she jovially slapped Gourry's back as hard as she could… unfortunately it was in his kidneys. "Let's get going!"

"Wait, Lina!" Gourry caught her cape before she could start running.

"What Gourry?" Lina asked somewhat crossly.

"Well, two things Lina…" Gourry began, he hoped that this would both keep her safe and out of his hair, "First, look at Zelgadiss, he's going to need a friend to help him… and he'll need somebody who knows magic to help him find a cure…"

True, Gourry was grasping at straws trying to make Lina decide that she wanted to go with the chimera instead. But the next part was seriousness, "And second, you're going to have to be careful now… with your power and talent for destructiveness… Lina, people _will_ try to use you. So please go help Zell, and try to keep a low profile, ok?"

Lina nodded. He made some _very_ good points, enough that there might be something under all that blond hair of his. "Alright… I'll go."

As Lina answered Gourry felt something like the feeling when you have to sneeze. An instant later, had someone been in an Alpha state they would have seen blue lightning envelope Gourry Gabriev… and suddenly he wasn't where he was before… and he wasn't _who_ he had been before.

• • • • • • • • • • •

There was no way to dodge the oncoming big, blue, swirling-thing. Especially considering he was just looking up from his watch and in a vehicle. Driving it, apparently.

All he could do was hold on as he fell through a hole in space/time and unknowingly become a dimension-traveler times two. This was the fate of one Rembrandt Brown, though he wouldn't know that was his new name until he looked in his wallet after he'd landed…

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

Alright that's it for the Slayers Arc! I had this and the last chapter together as a special double-sized chapter. Okay, so I realized it was a bit long and found the best place to put a chapter break.

Now that that's finished here's where things should start to get a little different. I hope you'll like what I've got coming next… but we might have to wait for it because school's starting up again.


	12. Chapter 011 :Begin Arc 02:

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 11**

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh…" was the scream that came from the Cadillac driver. It was understandable, really, considering that he'd just entered an Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge, otherwise called a wormhole.

The Cadillac and driver exited the wormhole just as suddenly as they had entered, unfortunately that didn't leave too much time to stop before crashing into a snow-drift or, with the sudden and bone-jarring stop, perhaps it was an ice-drift… he couldn't be sure in this frozen waste, especially not with the snowfall.

"What in the…?" Rembrandt looked around, this was quite different than he was expecting. After all, people don't just start walking one instant and then just be driving; they don't just suddenly go from a temperate climate to frozen wasteland either. It defied the whole concept of causality, everything that one could assume… that's when he got a look in the mirror.

The reflection _wasn't_ that of a big blonde-haired, blue-eyed swordsman… instead the face that looked back was quite different. Dark brown instead of the pale flesh-color, and the brown eyes were quite different but he liked them.

"This is weird." He muttered to himself as he exited the vehicle to examine it and a gust of icy wind seemed to suck all the warmth from him. Teeth chattering he completed a circuit and found nothing looking to be too badly damaged.

"What do I do now?" Rembrandt asked himself as he jammed his hands into his trouser pockets for a little warmth. _Pockets?_ He hadn't known he'd had any, he knew what they were, but had never used them himself… well, that he could remember anyway.

A quick search of his pockets turned up several nick-knacks, but the most useful thing was a wallet which bore a driver's license for one Rembrandt Brown, and the same face that had looked back from the mirror just minutes ago was the same one pictured.

"I… I guess I'm Rembrandt Brown instead of Gourry Gabriev, but that was too real to have been some dream, right?" Rembrandt asked himself with a sardonic chuckle, "Maybe that swirly whoosh thing fried my brain and I imagined it all…" he continued talking to himself, about the wormhole of course. It _was_ the most exciting thing that had happened to him all day.

Several minutes later, he'd put the top up on the car and was about to start it and get the heater going when he saw a flicker of orange light outside which turned out to be candles that some people were holding.

"H-hey guys! Who're you?" Rembrandt called out to them, taking a chance. "Where am I?"

The small group of people conversed among themselves for a moment before descending from the porch of the house and making their way over to Rembrandt's car.

As the introductions were about to get started Rembrandt interrupted, holding out his hand in the stop gesture.

"Wait, wait… first things first." Rembrandt gestured to the car, and after a brief exchange of bewildered looks he added, "Get in the car. Come on, come on… it's cold out here."

A colder than normal gust of wind accelerated the group's compliance and the piled into the car, the solid object itself would be warmer because of the effect as a windbreak. The four huddled in their seats, relit one of the candles, and restarted the introductions.

"I am Professor Maximilian Arturo," The tall, portly, older man with the beard said. "Regent's Professor of Cosmology and Ontology at California State University." Professor Arturo held out a hand and indicated the younger man.

"Quinn Mallory." The younger one said holding out his hand, only to realize that he was holding on to something that looked like a bulky mobile phone; embarrassed he transferred it to his other hand and offered to shake.

"I'm Wade Wells." Piped in the thin young woman next to him.

"Alright then," Rembrandt said rubbing his hands together for warmth. "Do you guys know what that big thing was?"

"Thing?" Quinn asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, it was big, swirly and made a _whoosh_ noise…" Rembrandt began, then trailed off, there was no way they were going to think he was sane.

As if to prove his line of thought Quinn laughed at him, only to be interrupted by Wade agreeing with him, "You mean the vortex!"

Rembrandt nodded solemnly. Vortex was certainly a good word to describe what he'd seen, but that didn't explain why it'd appeared out of nowhere and swallowed his car. He had to ask the obvious question, "What _is_ it though?"

"The vortex is an inter-dimensional singularity known as an Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge…" The professor began, fighting the urge to go into more detail… but it was just too much, as the head of Cosmology and a respected leader in more theoretical branches of physics it was simply amazing and exciting to see that it was being applied.

"What he means," Quinn interrupted, "is that it's a doorway to an alternate Earth."

"Alternate?" Rembrandt asked, unsure of what they were talking about, and yet it had a vaguely familiar feel to it, something that seemed on the verge of tickling some old memory.

"Yes, there are certain theories that state that if there is infinite mass then there exists a set of finite mass, a 'universe', that satisfies not only any given state, but _all_ given states!" The professor excitedly explained.

"Huh?" Was Rembrandt's less than intelligent-sounding reply. Infinite mass? That didn't make _any_ sense… everything was finite, so there _couldn't_ be infinite mass.

"What he means is that there's some people that think a universe exists for every possibility…" Quinn tried explaining, "Kind of like those 'What If' comics, only there's one for every possibility, instead of just a few of the interesting ones."

"I think I see…" Rembrandt said, and soon Quinn and the Professor were spouting strange physics jargon to each other. Just when Rembrandt was about to try to give up the professor nodded and continued with the explanation.

"You can think of the vortex as a sort of gateway to another world," the professor paused to make sure that Rembrandt was following, "and every time the vortex opens it's like taking a roulette wheel to determine which universe you'll end up in… except in the return case, where the timer pulls you back to our original world."

"Alright, I think I see…" Rembrandt replied, completely swamped in information overload, but thinking he had a bit of a grasp on the basics.

Rembrandt leaned back, hoping to take a nap or get a little rest, but when he closed his eyes he noticed the wind change pitch and seem to get louder. Curious, he rolled the window down a bit, enough to take a good look outside and enough to get complaints form the other passengers. The complaints were really of little value compared to what he saw, a funnel-shaped tornado-like ice-storm moving toward them quickly.

"Guys! Guys! We've got to get out of here _now_!" Rembrandt yelled to the others, pointing out the window at the storm.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"I don't think we should activate the timer prematurely!" Quinn shouted over the roar of the wind.

"I don't think we have much of a choice!" Rembrandt yelled at the young scientist, pointing at the rapidly advancing ice-storm. "We've got to get out of here, and now!"

There was a consensus from the other people in the group and so somewhat reluctantly Quinn activated the timer and opened a wormhole to another dimension through which everyone went, first Miss Wells, then the Professor, and lastly Quinn…

• • • • • • • • • • •

Rembrandt screamed as he entered the wormhole, the sensation of flying through impossible twists at truly insane speeds was enough to put any roller-coaster to shame, including the landing… _especially_ the landing.

It was like trying to jump over a gorge blindfolded in such a way that halfway through your jump the blindfold comes off and you only having a split an instant to try to land in a manner that wouldn't result in injury. And so it was that Rembrandt flew out of the wormhole vortex and nearly into a tree.

Rembrandt looked back at the spot where the wormhole opening was, the last member of their group, Quinn Mallory, still had yet to emerge.

Wade spared a moment to look at Rembrandt and yell over the wind from the wormhole's mouth, "Where's Quinn?"

"I don't know!" Rembrandt yelled back.

"I thought he was right behind you! Didn't you see him?" Wade asked.

"Well, I flew with my eyes shut most of the time." Rembrandt said in reply feeling a bit sheepish.

Wade looked at Rembrandt with what was either an expression of disbelief or disgust, possibly both, and was about to say something else when Quinn flew out of the wormhole, flying into Rembrandt.

"Ouch." Rembrandt said before he untangled and picked himself up. "So… are we back?"

Quinn looked around the park they had landed in, it was one that he was familiar with and passed nearly every day on his way to the university. "It looks like it… but why didn't the timer take us back to my basement like last time?"

"Last time?" Rembrandt asked.

Quinn nodded, "When I was testing it the first time I was outside my house on an alternate world when the timer activated and the wormhole pulled me back to my basement."

"Oh…" Rembrandt nodded as if he understood, but things were changing just a bit too quickly for him to get a handle on. Rembrandt was quickly beginning to feel what was probably the epitome of the ancient Chinese curse "interesting times", like there was nothing stabile in the world. "I think I'll sit down for a minute."

"Mr. Mallory, has that always been there?" The Professor asked, unable to keep a note of disdain from his voice, which was evidently lost on his young protege.

Quinn didn't even look up, he'd been in the park often before and knew that the only thing of note was the statue of Abraham Lincoln. "Yeah, Abe's always been there."

"No, not Lincoln, Stalin!" The professor exclaimed, pulling Quinn's attention from the timer to the statue.

"Oh…" Was all that Quinn could say for a moment._

* * *

EternallyLost_

– I hope you're happy at successfully losing half your readership by switching to such a series… 

If that's true and I've lost half my readership, then (by my calculations) I should have anywhere from 12½ to 15¾ readers left.

… I suppose with calculations like that I could get a job at the Census Department.

_TannimMurphy_ – Sliding from Slayers into Sliders? What are you thinking, man? Please don't tell me Rembrandt is going to be acting like Gourry. At least have your character start to remember some stuff! Or is this series simply an excuse to tell different stories that you like from different perspectives? I really would have liked to see something other than what strictly had happened in Slayers. The twist at the end was kind of interesting, except that it was devoid of any sort of revelation as to what that could have lead to. The only, ONLY reason I keep reading is because it's better than the vast majority of SI work, in that at least you're A) not overpowered, and B) not overshadowing the main characters of the series so far.

I'm damnably curious as to where the heck you're taking me with this story. Despite it's inherent flaws, I want to know what happens next. I suppose that's the sign of a good writer. :D

Ok, wow, that's a pretty long review, but it brings up a few good points. First off that last bit makes your review a "**_+4 Review of Encouragement_**", thank you! Secondly, about this being an excuse to tell stories I like from a different perspective, kinda, but that's not really the main intention; _QSE_ has (or will have) a cross-arc and overall general story that I wanted to tell. Third, _is_ the end of the last Arc _really_ devoid of meaning? Maybe we'll come back and do a second Slayers Arc… _Sore wa himetsu desu_. Fourthly, this is _not_ a _fusion_, not at all. The only reason you might think that it could be a fusion is because of similar-ish ideas (e.g. Sliders and Quantum Leap, alternate histories and time-travel, that are implemented in somewhat complementary fashions); I chose Gourry for my first 'insertion' because it would explain his behavior and lack of knowledge about his world and, as a friend observed, allow me to show character development. A side-effect is that it eases people into the character and it goes along with the Quantum Leap back story, since Sam couldn't remember much of anything when he started leaping. Lastly, no; Rembrandt will not act like Gourry… overmuch.

Wow, that's a _lot_ of Author's Notes… I'll try to keep it fairly brief from here on out, but I felt that those really needed to be addressed.

As always, comment & criticisms are welcome.


	13. Chapter 012

Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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**Chapter 12 **

"What's with the big deal? It's just a statue." Rembrandt asked looking up at the bronze figure that adorned the park.

"It's the wrong person…" Quinn began.

"So they changed the statue, right?" Rembrandt asked

"No, see, it's too old… it's been weathered." Quinn countered pointing out the slight wear.

"They could have just moved it, you know." Rembrandt countered.

"In the hour we were gone? I don't think so."

"Maybe you weren't paying attention when they replaced Lincoln with Lenin." Rembrandt countered.

"And _where_ in our US are you going to find a statue like this and so old?" The professor broke in, putting a stop to the difference of opinions before the two attracted unwanted attention. "Now, I suggest that we find miss Wells and wait for the retrieval routine to kick in."

"I'm afraid that's not possible." Quinn said pulling out the timer and looking at it, "The presets were burnt-out when I activated the timer prematurely… that's why it didn't return us to my house."

"What?" The professor gasped and staggered back a step, "My God! It could have sent us underground or inside some other solid object."

"Nah, I integrated a densitometer into it's functionality, so it won't do that." Quinn replied, "And before you ask, it's got a laser-gyro that keeps it within a two-mile radius."

The professor breathed sigh of relief, "I'm glad you took the time to think ahead when you were building that."

"Yeah," Quinn nodded, "Me too."

"Guys," Wade said running up to the professor and Quinn, "We have a problem. We're not home."

"Yeah, we know that." Quinn replied nodding toward the statue, "Look."

"Stalin?" Wade gasped, taking a step back. After a moment of pointing to the statue she said, "That explains it." She said in epiphany.

"Explains what?" Quinn asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"A live operator," Wade started to explain but was cut off by Quinn.

"We have live operators at home." Quinn objected obstinately.

"Yes, but this one was _friendly_!" Wade protested.

"Really?" Quinn asked as he gave Wade an odd, disbelieving look.

"Yes, really!" Wade said, obviously annoyed and irritated.

"Maybe the job for operator was outsourced…" Quinn mumbled softly to himself.

"Just drop it! She was _nice_… that's what matters here." Wade jumped in the middle of Quinn's musing.

Wade looked positively furious, and it was at no small risk to himself, given his pervious experiences with the females of his species, that Rembrandt broke in and said. "That all doesn't matter right now, what does is the question 'what do we do now?'."

"Mr. Rembrandt is right," The professor said with a nod, "We need to figure out what's wrong with Mr. Mallory's timing device, repair it, and return to our proper world. Now, it seems that we've stumbled onto a bit of luck…"

"Luck?" Quinn interrupted with a snort, "I don't see how _any_ of this could be considered luck."

"It's quite simple Mr. Mallory," The professor explained, "we're stuck in a communist America, and that means that resources are distributed to the populace by the government as needed… or so the theory goes; we can assume that by the fanaticism, and the anti-American-capitalist rhetoric from the candidate's speech," Professor Arturo jerked a thumb toward the political rally before continuing, "that communism must be fairly new to the States, and as such we can expect that the 'social excitement', if you will, will allow us access to the equipment we need at little to no cost to ourselves."

Wade nodded, waiting for the professor to continue, and Quinn said "Yeah…" as he mulled it over, while Rembrandt simply spoke what he was thinking, "Why don't we get a hotel room and see about repairing that timer?"

"An excellent idea Mr. Brown!" The professor said loudly, before leaning over to Rembrandt and whispering, "Now if only Mr. Mallory would pay half as much attention to things as you do."

Rembrandt puzzled over that as they walked to the hotel, a place called "The Chandler" or something like that. Signing in was a breeze, all the professor had to do was say he was the Regent's Professor of Cosmology and Ontology at California State University, which got as impressive service as the title sounded.

So, after a little time spent getting comfortable the Professor and Quinn started work on the timer, Quinn assessing the damage incurred by the early activation and the Professor working through what was either a very large equation or a series of equations that were in Quinn's notebook.

Rembrandt didn't understand anything that the two were doing so he jumped at the chance to leave when Wade announced that she was going to the store and tagged along with her.

"Does anyone want me to pick up anything while I'm out?" Wade asked.

"Yes, " The professor spoke up, "Some pens and a lot of paper or maybe a dry-erase marker…" The professor eyed the large sliding glass door that led out to the balcony and continued, "That would be better actually."

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Hey, thanks… those two were in another world." Rembrandt dais to Wade as he closed the door behind them.

"Hey, it's no problem, I needed to get out for a bit myself." Wade giggled, "I've been Quinn's friend for years and it still bugs me a little, so I can imagine how you feel."

"Yeah." Rembrandt nodded, "So, any ideas in particular where to go?"

"Well, let's get the professor his pen, paper and markers first." Wade looked at him and smiled a wide, and somewhat predatory smile, at him. "And then we cold take a look around and go shopping!"

Rembrandt wondered for a moment wether he'd made the right choice and the phrase 'from the frying-pan into the fire' popped into his head. It could be a leftover feeling from shopping with Lina, but what if womenfolk were naturally like that? Rembrandt suppressed a shudder at the thought of half the race being like Lina in any significant way.

Fortunately, Rembrandt found that shopping with miss Wells was an entirely different experience. For one she wasn't about to argue with the vendors for hours on end for the teeniest bit of 'savings'. (Or try bullying, swindling or otherwise tricking or intimidating them... as she had done in that dragon incident.) In fact, it was almost enjoyable… for the first thirty minutes, when he wasn't bored.

That was until a book caught Rembrandt's eye. It was nestled between a newspaper, _Communist World Daily: The People's Paper_, and a magazine, _We Can Do It…WITH COMMUNISM_, titled '_The New Social Paradigm_'.

Rembrandt read it as he followed Wade around the store and soon found it to be a strange collection of philosophy, propaganda, and anecdotal stories that endorsed communism and rejected any form of capitalism.

Rembrandt grinned at a story from a guy in Texas that implied that the change from Capitalism to Communism had cured his warts and gout. Like any government or other social construct could be directly responsible for ails!

"'If only Texas hadn't been the last state to switch to Communism.'" Rembrandt chuckled under his breath.

"Where's the checkout?" Wade almost screamed in frustration.

It drew incredulous stares to her and even some whispering, but after a few moments another young woman came up to her and said "Um, there is no checkout… only a sign-out."

"Oh, thanks." Wade said a bit awkwardly.

"You're not from around here are you?" She asked Wade.

Wade began to try to explain that she was from this town, "No, um, we're from"

"Texas!" Rembrandt broke in. "You know, it's just so much different than we're used to."

"Ah, yes," The young woman nodded, then added with a bit of pity "It was the last state to switch."

"It's like a whole 'nother country." Rembrandt quoted, eliciting a laugh from the young lady.

"Well, I suppose I could show how things work here." She smiled at him, "Oh, my name's Sara."

"Uh, Rembrandt…" Rembrandt said, still feeling a bit uncomfortable using the new name.

So Sara showed them how to sign out items. It involved you showing your Social Security card or driver's license to the stores' custodian and signing a record of transaction.

"Thanks." Wade said to Rembrandt as they exited the store.

"For what?" Rembrandt asked, confused as to what Wade was talking about.

"You know, that slip back there." Wade clarified.

"Oh, that." Rembrandt shrugged, "It wasn't anything."

As soon as they returned the professor took the dry-erase markers and began copying the equations from Quinn's notebook and some other equations with an excitement that could be called schoolboyish.

While Quinn went out to get electronics components that he needed to repair the timer, after Wade told him how to 'signout' things.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"How's that equation coming along?" Quinn asked as he looked up from the coffee table he was using as a workbench, where a multitude of esoteric electronic components lay, awaiting integration into the high-tech device that was the timer.

"Not well," The professor admitted, shaking his head as he looked at the glass sliding doors, which were nearly covered in dry-erase ink. "How about the repairs?"

"Well, kinda mixed results…" Quinn said glancing down at his wristwatch, "It'll be able to work now, but the presets are _definitely_ gone."

"Ah, well, it's better than nothing." Professor Arturo said trying to encourage his student as he spotted an error he'd made a few minutes ago and erased it with the palm of his hand. "How long do we have until the next window?"

Quinn flipped the half disassembled timer's face over, "Four hours and eighteen minutes. Hey, professor…"

"Yes?" Arturo looked up from what was either a very clever reworking of some previous terms or yet another error.

"Why don't you let me work on that for a while?" Quinn offered as he began to reassemble the timer. "You've been at that since 4 AM."

"Well… I am tired." Arturo nodded, "Alright, but I do feel I'm this close!" The professor held his hands two inches apart.

Quinn chuckled, "Don't worry, if I solve it you'll get top billing at all the lectures we'll do."

"Mr. Mallory, I wonder about you sometimes."

"You should professor, you should." There was a chuckle from the doorway, where Rembrandt held several paper bags, evidently just returning from a shopping trip. "Well, who wants sandwiches for lunch? It's a bit late, I know, but…"

"I'll have one." Quinn said and seemed to instantly be circling the food like some kind of bipedal shark… or maybe a vulture, it was hard to tell with the college student.

"Here." Rembrandt held out a sandwich and was relived when Quinn sat back at the coffee table and finished assembling the timer as he ate.

"So, Rembrandt…" Quinn said as he stuffed the timer into his shirt pocket and stood up, "What do you think of 'shopping' in this place?"

"It's different… everything's free, pretty much…" Rembrandt scratched his head as he trailed off.

Quinn nodded at Rembrandt, "Well, I doubt it'll last."

"Oh, why's that?" Rembrandt asked.

"Well, you know, if there's anything that history's taught us it's that no matter what system of government is in place there will always be corruption…" Quinn said as he continued to double-check the professor's work.

"Yeah…" Rembrandt trailed off, not wanting to revel his lack of knowledge about history. Playing the simpleton had worked as a means to gather information with Lina, but he didn't want a lack of information play down his intelligence. Well, that and if he ever ran across someone like Lina again it would be rather painful to continue the act.

With that thought, Rembrandt let the conversation drop and left the room, saying that he'd be in the lobby. He didn't even hear Quinn's response as he shut the door and made his way into the lobby deep in thought.

It was becoming apparent that the only thing he really knew was the art of swordsmanship, and he wasn't exactly the best either. He'd been told he was good, but he _knew_ that there was more to learn about that particular art. That and swordsmanship was also obviously not something in high demand here, not like it was on Lina's 'world'.

Rembrandt chuckled a bit, at least he could explain it to himself as being another world, another life if you would… but still, it gnawed at him that he was pretty much useless here.

Rembrandt sighed to himself and pulled out a book at random from the hotel's lobby bookshelf and began to read it. It happened to be Plato's _Republic_, which he would have found odd to be in a hotel if he'd thought about it.

Rembrandt was so engrossed in the reading that he didn't notice that it was time to go until Quinn tapped him on the arm. "Hey, it's time to go."

"Oh?" Rembrandt said without looking up from his book, and replied in a tone that said most of attention was elsewhere, "I thought you said we had four hours…"

"I did…" Quinn replied, then added with his quirky grin, "four hours ago."

"Huh?" Rembrandt's head shot up at hearing that, he'd been so wrapped up in the book, about the nature of Justice, that he hadn't even noticed the time.

Rembrandt followed Quinn down into the alleyway out back where the professor and Wade were waiting for the time on the timer to reach zero, which was a good seven minutes away.

"Ah, good, I see you've found Mr. Brown." The professor said to Quinn with a grin, and then addressed Rembrandt, "We're just about ready to go; I'm glad you decided to join us."

"Well, you know professor…" Rembrandt laughed, it was a little embarrassing to have been almost left behind like that, then finished with a wink, "I wouldn't have anything to do here."

• • • • • • • • • • •

The four tumbled out of the wormhole onto the middle of a street, not the most comfortable of landings admittedly, and the four spent a few minutes picking themselves up from the pavement and inspecting themselves for injuries.

"What's that?" Rembrandt asked. Puzzled by a faint sound, something between a purr and a growl, and apparently moving.

"What's what?" Wade asked, obviously unable to hear it.

The professor nodded in agreement with Wade. "I can't hear anything."

"Well, it sounds like a…" Rembrandt was about to describe the sound when it became louder, loud enough that he didn't have to describe it.

"There's lots of them by the sound of it…" Quinn said, looking around as he tried to locate the sound, which was starting to echo oddly among the buildings.

Suddenly he didn't need to look for the sound as the motorcycle gang rounded the corner a block away. The four dimensional-excursionists scrambled to the sidewalk just in time to get out of the way of the oncoming bikers.

They watched as the gang sped past, it might have been normal for bikers to wave swords around over their horn-helmed heads… but one look at the gaping mouths of Wade and Quinn pretty-much dispelled that notion.

"I was definitely not expecting _that_." Quinn gestured in the direction that the Viking-bikers had disappeared.

"Yes, but look here…" The professor said as he pointed at the street sign, which held several angular characters.

"Runes?" Wade asked as she eyed the sign.

The professor nodded, "Well, there has been some debate as to if Norse people were the first Europeans to come to the New World."

"Well, it looks like there's no debate here." Quinn smirked, "I wonder how that's changed the rest of the world."

"Who knows?" Wade said shaking her head, "If it's true, then this is going to be very different than either home or communist-earth."

"Yeah... you're right." Quinn admitted, then turned to the Professor, "How long are we here for?"

"Thirteen days." The professor said, looking down at the timer. Then he muttered to himself, "I just hope we can survive it."

Rembrandt grinned at that, if there were swords here then he just might be able to.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**I don't have a lot to say except that I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, not to worry though, I've only one more chapter planned for this Arc. After I get that one written up I hope we'll start getting to the real fun. (But it's Ranma, how can it not be fun?) 


End file.
